The Stuff Legends Are Made Of

On Friday, February 18^th, 2011, past and present members of the Carolina Hurricanes organization and a bevy of Caniacs came together at the RBC Center to honor the career of one of hockey’s hardest working players. Rod Brind’Amour’s number was retired and sent to the rafters in an hour-long ceremony held before faceoff of the Canes v Flyers game. The ceremony capped a week of reminiscing and celebrating his career through stories shared in our local newspaper, the Hurricanes’ official website, our local ESPN Radio broadcasts, and numerous blogs.

I may not have been in Raleigh during the 2002 or 2006 playoffs, nor a Canes (or hockey) fan yet for the Stanley Cup win, but having gotten so into Caniac fandom once I got to Raleigh, I have gotten a pretty thorough education re:Canes history. I learned from my first two seasons as a Caniac how great of a leader #17 is and could see the effect he had on his teammates. I heard about his intense work ethic and commitment to keeping himself in the best shape possible for the good of his game. I could see the inspiration he brought to the team in clips from those playoff runs and live at the games. His mark on this team, organization, and the Caniacs was clear, and definitely deserving of all the acclaim surrounding the retirement of his number this weekend.

An emotional week leading up to Brind’Amour Night resulted in an intensely emotional game between the Canes and the Flyers. As the two teams most a part of his career, all players for both the Canes and Flyers wore jerseys with his name and number before the game got started. A very classy move by the Flyers that was both recognized and much appreciated. Once the puck dropped, though, we had to put all the mushy feelings aside and take on the challenge of beating the Eastern Conference leaders.

The Canes did us proud as they played with urgency from the start of the game and wore their emotions on their sleeves. There was discussion of how fitting it was for Chad LaRose, one of the Canes closest to #17, to get the first goal of the game, Erik Cole to get the game-winner (yet again), and Cam to have some ridiculous saves (see video of his glove save against Carle at the bottom of this post). All in all, it was a great game, a much needed win on many levels, and a very memorable night honoring one of our Canes legends. Circumstances kept our Caniac Girl Quartet from attending, but we watched from home with our commemorative Brind’essert, happy the long roadie and home hockey hiatus is now over.

The Brind'essert: Chocolate rink cake with mint Oreo "puck" border. Markings not quite to scale, but it didn't come out half bad for not having my proper cake tools!

Cam's ridiculous save courtesy of YouTube: