A ‘surreal’ night with ‘a cherry on top’ for Canes fans who have waited for years
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- Some hockey fans who were just kids 20 years ago now celebrate as adults.
- Longtime and new fans gathered at Lenovo Center and Red Hat Amphitheater to party.
- Fans reacted with embraces, car horns, and street celebrations along Glenwood Avenue.
The Lenovo Center erupted in cheers as the video board showed Brandon Bussi hoist the Stanley Cup above his shoulders from the ice in Las Vegas.
Trey and Brady Sanders said when they heard Bussi was suiting up as the team’s starting goalie again for Game 6, they knew they could breathe easy.
“It was the cherry on top,” Brady Sanders said.
It’s been a long road for the father and son since they joined the Hurricanes fanbase in 2000, with only one Stanley Cup win to show for the past two decades.
A family united around love of the Canes
For one Raleigh family, a Carolina Hurricanes Stanley Cup marks a new chapter in family history.
In 2006, David Thome was sitting with his kids on the couch when the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup. They cheered ecstatically — though they don’t even remember it now. They were then four and six years old.
The next year, Thome took his kids, then five and seven, to a Canes game, a match they won 8-2 against the Islanders. They sat in nosebleed seats. His kids have been devout fans ever since.
His daughter Anna is a Hurricanes season ticket holder — a luxury she springs for even with her job as a schoolteacher, Thome said.
Tonight, Anna is watching from inside Lenovo while his son watches from outside. Thome himself is watching from Red Hat Amphitheater.
Thome said this win is “just so exciting” for his Thome family.
“This is a Brind’Amour team,” he said.
— Jane Winik Sartwell
Victory for an NC State fan
Miles Luginbuhl, a 19-year-old NC State superfan, isn’t used to winning championships, he said. That’s what makes this moment even more special.
“This is just great,” he said, from his seat next to his mother, Sarah, at Red Hat Amphitheater on Sunday night.
— Jane Winik Sartwell
A ‘surreal’ moment in an unwashed jersey
Tim Smith stood at the fringes of a crowd outside the Lenovo Center wearing a red Hurricanes jersey that he hadn’t washed since 2002. He hadn’t touched the jersey because he didn’t want to rub off the luck that had gotten the Hurricanes inches away from a championship title before they fell to the Detroit Red Wings in the series.
“It’s still got nacho cheese stains,” Smith said.
For Smith and his wife Kim, the Hurricanes are a part of their story. The pair were gifted tickets to a game for their third date about 30 years ago and sat right behind the glass. They fell in love — with each other and the team.
Now, Smith said he’s in disbelief seeing the team he’s loved for decades be crowned the Stanley Cup Champions.
“It’s surreal,” he said.
— Faith Wardwell
‘The icing on the cake’
When Jen and Phillip Ragain moved to Raleigh from Houston three years ago, they were in search of a sports community. They found the Hurricanes. They feel like they couldn’t have been more lucky.
“We already knew we would love Raleigh,” Jen said. “But this is the icing on the cake — the good icing, I mean.”
They watched Sunday night from Red Hat, while their son, 17, looked on from a seat at Lenovo, she said. She hopes that the world will see what a great sports town Raleigh is, and that one day Major League Baseball might take notice.
— Jane Winik Sartwell
An early Monday meeting seems unlikely
Strangers bumped fists and embraced on Glenwood Avenue. Fans leaned out of car windows while stopped at traffic lights and screamed themselves red-faced slapping five with whoever walked past.
As she walked to her car, one fan spoke into her phone, “Let’s cancel it. Nobody is going to be there at 9 tomorrow. Everybody’s celebrating.”
— Josh Shaffer
This story was originally published June 15, 2026 at 1:07 AM.