RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Thousands of jubilant Carolina Hurricanes fans crammed onto sidewalks, peered out office building windows and even lined up on floor after floor of a parking deck to cheer and wave at the team’s Stanley Cup championship parade on Saturday.The turnout that packed downtown was enough to leave their coach — the captain of the team’s last Cup winner 20 years earlier — at a loss for words.“I’m in shock,” Rod Brind’Amour said in the gap between the end of the parade and the start of the rally that concluded the day’s festivities in North Carolina’s capital. “It doesn’t happen very often, but I’m just kinda speechless.”The Hurricanes brought their Stanley Cup celebration to downtown Raleigh on Saturday, drawing a crowd that police estimated at 150,000, according to city public information officer Julia Milstead. That represented nearly a third of Raleigh’s population (506,306) according to U.S. Census estimates for July 2025.
By comparison, the Hurricanes held a parade around the Lenovo Center arena grounds — then known as the RBC Center — that drew about 30,000 fans in 2006 after beating the Edmonton Oilers in 2006 for their first Cup title. Then came a smaller, second parade downtown that drew about 8,000, according to The News & Observer of Raleigh.
