Raleigh officials up crowd size: 180,000 Hurricanes fans flooded downtown for Stanley Cup parade and rally

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP/WNCN) — Raleigh police said Sunday said that even more jubilant Carolina Hurricanes fans than first estimated crammed onto sidewalks, peered out office building windows and lined parking deck floors on Saturday to cheer and wave at the team’s Stanley Cup championship parade.

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The turnout — forecast at 100,000 and later estimated at 150,000 — 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.”

On Sunday, Raleigh Police Chief Rico Boyce said the crowd was estimated at 180,000. Event organizers also had that estimate.

The Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup celebration in downtown Raleigh on Saturday, pulled a crowd that police estimated, based on initial numbers, represented nearly a third of Raleigh’s population, 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.

This time, players riding double-decker buses were greeted by what Brind’Amour called “wave on wave” of fans. They were screaming, chanting, waving flags and wearing Carolina jerseys, still buzzing from the franchise beating the Vegas Golden Knights last weekend.

“I was trying to explain to the fellas what I knew was going to happen,” said captain Jordan Staal, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP. “And my expectations were so high because I know these Caniacs, I know what they’re all about, and I was still blown away. I couldn’t even describe how amazing that was.”

The team took the rally stage with Staal hoisting the Stanley Cup skyward before a roaring crowd, while Jordan Martinook and Andrei Svechnikov were among a line of Hurricanes players who kept intermittently cranking the “Storm Warning” siren that is a pregame tradition for the team to take the ice.

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The Hurricanes even got some business done, with general manager Eric Tulsky calling reserve forward Nicolas Deslauriers to the podium to sign a two-year $1.75 million deal. The trade-deadline acquisition was set to become an unrestricted free agent, one of the few bits of roster uncertainty for a team that has the core of its roster locked up to long-term deals.

Otherwise, it was a daylong party.

Carly Goodman, 35, of Raleigh, was hard to miss in the front row behind barricades in front of the stage where the parade would end with a rally. She sported a red Sebastian Aho jersey, waved a large Hurricanes flag and was blinged out with a silver “Stanley Cup” chain necklace.

She was drinking from a “beer skate,” the novelty mug shaped like a Hurricanes skate that sold out immediately during the Game 1 of the second-round series against Philadelphia. She got up at 5 a.m. — “Let my dogs out, they were mad to get up,” she said — and made sure to head straight downtown hours in advance to ensure a prime spot.

“It’s been something special ever since 2006,” Goodman said. “Raleigh’s a small market. We’ve got college sports, but this is epic. It’s a team that everybody can get behind. It breaks down all the barriers. Everyone just comes together and smiles, no matter if you’re a Duke fan, Carolina fan, whatever — it doesn’t matter.”

It was a longer trek for Scott Stiles, 60, and his son, Joey, 24. They weren’t about to miss the celebration even though they live in Concord, a city outside of Charlotte known for its ties to NASCAR and other motorsports. So they hopped in the car around 3 a.m. to make the 2 1/2-hour drive, arriving more than five hours before the parade was scheduled to start and finding fans like Goodman already waiting closer to the City Plaza stage.

The duo — Scott in a Svechnikov jersey, Joey wearing a Seth Jarvis one — had chairs plopped in the middle of Fayetteville Street straight back from the stage, their spot marked by a giant Hurricanes flag.

“When’s the next time they’re going to win a Cup?” Scott said, pausing as a “Let’s go Canes!” chant wrapped up. “They might win it again next year, who knows? But we wanted to be a part of it.”

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