As if Rod Brind'Amour wasn't already Carolina Hurricanes royalty...
The image of Rod Brind'Amour screaming triumphantly while raising the Stanley Cup as the Carolina Hurricanes' captain had been the franchise's defining image for the past two decades.
Now there will be another: Brind'Amour raising the Cup again, this time as the Hurricanes' coach who has made the sun-soaked Southern market his longtime home.
The Hurricanes won their second championship by beating the Vegas Golden Knights 3-0 on Sunday night to close out a six-game Stanley Cup Final, adding a remarkable chapter to Brind'Amour's enduring presence with the franchise. In a region generally best known for rabid college sports rivalries, he is the embodiment of Hurricanes hockey.
He was the 35-year-old two-way center as the heart and soul of that 2006 title run, known for grinding on-ice work and weight-room training.
The owner of the retired No. 17 jersey in the Lenovo Center rafters.
The guy who proclaimed "I bleed Hurricane red" when becoming head coach of a franchise lost in a nine-year wilderness without a playoff bid.
Now he's the coach who built a perennial contender that has finally reached its zenith. He joins Toe Blake with Montreal, Hap Day with Toronto and Cooney Weiland with Boston as the only other people in NHL history to both captain and coach the same organization to a Stanley Cup.
Doing it more than a quarter-century after arriving as a player shocked to be traded to Carolina makes it only sweeter.
"I don't just wear this (Hurricanes) hat, take it off and wear someone else's the next day," Brind'Amour said in May during his eighth playoff appearance in as many seasons. "That's just not what it is. It means a little more to me because I've been here for so long. We have the roots and the history, so I'm very lucky in that way."
Brind'Amour's arrival triggered a title climb
Brind'Amour - born in the Canadian capital of Ottawa and raised in Campbell River, British Columbia - arrived in a January 2000 trade from Philadelphia. That jarring charge had an inauspicious start; he reached Raleigh amid a heavy snowstorm that had paralyzed the area.
Just two years later, Brind'Amour helped Carolina make an unexpected run to the Stanley Cup Final. Then, in the NHL's 2005 return from a season-cancelling lockout, Brind'Amour became captain as the Hurricanes beat Edmonton in seven games for his unforgettable Cup-hoisting moment.
Brind'Amour was part of another East final run in 2009 before retiring in 2010. He held a front-office role before spending seven seasons as an assistant coach and then taking over the bench in 2018.
The challenge was daunting. There was the on-ice frustration from the long playoff drought. There was also flagging fan interest.
The Hurricanes had gone from averaging 16,573 fans for regular-season home games in the 2008-09 season to as low as 11,776 by the 2016-17 season. That stood at just 12,412 the year before Brind'Amour's promotion.
How Brind'Amour revitalized the Hurricanes
Brind'Amour quickly went about building a team capable of sustained success, one with an approach in befitting his personality. Use an aggressive forecheck to win puck battles. Maintain possession and generate scoring chances to keep the pressure on in the offensive zone.
The mantra was simple: keep working, it's the only way to give yourself a chance to win.
"It's just the eight years we've been doing this Roddy," captain Jordan Staal said before Game 6 against Vegas. "It's the game we've built and it doesn't ever change."
Brind'Amour acknowledges the value of having been a player - "I have sat in their seat," he said this month - in understanding the challenges they face and how to motivate them. He also talks about leading a team that fans can be proud of with its performance and effort.
And Brind'Amour continued a set-the-example leadership style, even in his own workout habits as he pushed into his 50s. It left an impression on offseason trade acquisition K'Andre Miller; the defenseman recalled coming in early to work out and finding Brind'Amour deep into bench squats.
"I'm like, 'Who is this guy?'" Miller chuckled last month.
"It doesn't hurt that your coach is in shape like that," forward Taylor Hall said before the final. "That's just the kind of guy he is. He's a role model for us, and we kind of follow his lead."
Building for sustained success led to a second Cup title
It's all added up to the Hurricanes making the playoffs every year of Brind'Amour's tenure. They reached the East final in 2019, 2023 and 2025 before pushing past Montreal this year.
Average regular-season home attendance is roughly 18,800 for the past two seasons combined. And in 2023, the team packed nearly 57,000 fans into Carter-Finley Stadium - home to N.C. State's football team across the street from the Lenovo Center - for a Stadium Series outdoor game.
Overall, Brind'Amour has been a player or coach for 102 of the franchise's 104 playoff victories since the former Hartford Whalers relocated to North Carolina in 1997.
That now includes Brind'Amour having his name etched on the Stanley Cup for a second time.
- The Associated Press contributed.
