I kept waking up in the middle of the night during the playoffs, and I\u2019d just stare at the ceiling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This image would come into my mind over and over again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019d try not to think about it. Go back to sleep, Jordan. Don\u2019t let your mind go there. You gotta rest. But as we got closer to the end of our journey this year it was harder to keep it out of my head.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I kept picturing myself skating toward the guys, our incredible team, and I\u2019m carrying the Cup their way. I\u2019d see their faces, and what it meant to all of them. I\u2019d look them in the eyes, and I could see their whole lives. The ups and downs, the wins and the heartbreaks. I could see it all. I just wanted that moment to be real so badly. I wanted it for them. For Carolina. And I could have stayed up all night thinking about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019d do my best to get back to sleep, to let my mind go somewhere else.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But that idea was the driving force for me. Winning the Cup was something I had experienced in 2009, and for the past 17 years I\u2019ve worked to get back there. My career, it sort of mirrors what Canes fans have gone through. It had been 20 years since Raleigh had the Cup. And I know how it weighed on this team. For me, every year that passed, I began to forget, just a bit, what it felt like in my hands, what it felt like over my head. The little details start to fade away. The moments in between that get lost to time. In some ways it was the same as looking at the photos of Roddy with the Cup in \u201906. When I got to Carolina in 2012, that was only six years earlier. Then you blink and it\u2019s been 20 years. And every season we couldn\u2019t get it done, it felt further and further away. That\u2019s the weight.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Cup has this gravity to it, this pull. It\u2019s this mythical thing we played for on our backyard rink when we were kids. Sometimes if we didn\u2019t have our own games, all four of us brothers would get out there. I remember getting picked up from practice, and in the winter it\u2019s dark so early and we\u2019d be pulling up to the house and I\u2019d be looking through the trees trying to see if the lights were on by the rink. I just wanted to be out there. We\u2019d play some two-versus-two. Oldest and youngest against the two middle. Posts to win the Cup. It was the best. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And then it all kind of happened fast. Eric got drafted in 2003, and I remember really just wanting to follow in his footsteps. Wanting to do what he was doing. Being four years younger, it was the coolest thing in the world to me seeing him in the NHL. Seeing Marc go in 2005, too. It was really special for our family. Then in my draft year in 2006, Eric won the Cup in Raleigh. I remember going to a few games in Edmonton during the Final and just not really even believing where I was. Seeing what it meant to Canes fans after they won, that stuck with me. Eric, Roddy, that whole team, they really understood Carolina. They were all connected.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two years later I was in my own Cup Final with Pittsburgh. We watched Detroit celebrate in our rink, and I just remember sitting on the bench and feeling lower than I\u2019d ever felt in my whole life to that point. Devastated, really. You dream of it, you work your tail off for it, and then it\u2019s there and gone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019m bringing this up because there\u2019s this vivid memory I have that I still think about to this day. It was a few days after we lost and the dust had sort of settled on the season. I think I was at the facility, and I remember just looking at Flower and being like, \u201cWe really have to go do that all over again?\u201d All the work we put in that year. All the time in the gym, on the ice, in the film room, on planes, buses \u2026 and we fell short. And now we have to go to do it again and hope it\u2019s different?<\/p>\n
I think there\u2019s a lot of noise out there about learning from losses or, you know, so-and-so had to lose before they could win. And I don\u2019t know if I agree with that. We were a good team in 2008, and we could have won that series. I don\u2019t know if we had to lose that year. But what I think Flower and I, and our whole team, took away from that experience was that when the moment comes around, it\u2019s everything that you put into it before then that makes the difference. <\/p>\n
A year later, we were champions. And yes, some of those memories have faded a bit, but some of them never lose their color. Especially being able to share the Cup with everyone who helped you get there. Taking it back home to Thunder Bay, spreading all that joy \u2026 it was an amazing feeling. I don\u2019t think I took any of it for granted, but I don\u2019t think I quite knew how hard it would be to get back there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dave Sandford\/NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Life, man\u2026.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s weird.<\/p>\n
Sometimes you get married on draft day in 2012. <\/p>\n
And sometimes you get traded during your wedding reception. <\/p>\n
And sometimes you look at your beautiful bride, and you look at Sid, and you think, Who do I tell first?<\/p>\n
But jokes aside, leaving Pittsburgh was hard. For me, I really wanted to play with Eric. It was something we always talked about out in our backyard. We dreamt about it. Family is everything to us, and I don\u2019t regret it one bit. But I\u2019d be lying if I said it wasn\u2019t hard to watch the Pens have the success they did. We struggled in Carolina. I think we had the lowest attendance in the league the year the Pens won in 2016. And I don\u2019t blame our fans, the product on the ice wasn\u2019t what they deserved. It hadn\u2019t been for a while.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We traded Eric that year as well. That was a real low point for me. It was just really tough. I think if you ask my wife she\u2019d tell you about a pretty unhappy version of me. I was questioning things, trying to figure out what the future was going to hold for me and my family. But I kept coming back to this idea.<\/p>\n
It was my decision to come here, to sign here. <\/p>\n
I made that commitment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And I promised myself I would do everything I could to win here.<\/p>\n
I had seen in 2006 what Raleigh could be. The way the building could shake to its foundation. The way bars downtown would drape in red and black. How Carolina could be a hockey state. I saw it. <\/p>\n
And I know somebody else who saw it, too. <\/p>\n
Roddy. <\/p>\n
Man, he is Carolina Hurricanes hockey to me. <\/p>\n
Josh Lavallee\/NHLI via Getty Image<\/p>\n
I remember in 2018, Tom Dundon had just bought the team and he came to me after the season ended and said, \u201cDo you think Rod would be a good head c\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
I cut him off before he could finish the sentence. <\/p>\n
\u201cYup.\u201d<\/p>\n
No-brainer. <\/p>\n
People ask about \u201cculture\u201d and \u201cbrick-by-brick\u201d and all this stuff. Here\u2019s how I\u2019d describe it: Roddy just came in and raised the expectation. Whatever you were doing before, it wasn\u2019t good enough. Everybody expected more now. And the guy next to you was going to hold you to that. Roddy would tell us what was possible and we\u2019d believe him because we could see it. He was on the walls, he was on the backs of jerseys in the stands (and he should be in the Hall of Fame, by the way). And that expectation has been there every day since he became the coach. I think you see that in the guys who have been here a while. Slavo, Fishy, Marty. And a lot more. We all try to set the tone that Roddy puts in place. <\/p>\n
What I think really made the difference though was the ability to find multiple ways to win. Those close calls in the playoffs, the conference final losses, they wear on you. Not just physically but mentally. They make you think what you\u2019re doing isn\u2019t working, or will never work. Every year it was harder and harder to come back and get the whole thing going again. That\u2019s where I give the most credit to Roddy and our front office. They found ways to make us a different team every year, to keep us building toward something. <\/p>\n
The additions we made this year, the guys we brought in, they were the right fit. Not just because they\u2019re great players, but because they were willing to buy in. We play a different brand of hockey down here. It\u2019s a little unique. It\u2019s not what guys are used to. But the way Nik, K\u2019Andre, and everybody who\u2019s come in and stepped up has gelled with our room, that brought us to another level. <\/p>\n
I think that was clear against Montreal. Losing Game 1 the way we did\u2026. I mean, yeah, it was hard not to think about the previous years. Like, Here we go again. Those scars are real, man. But the way we responded in Game 2, it was incredible. I remember looking around the room after Nik scored in OT and thinking to myself that this group was different. It wasn\u2019t going to be the same story with us.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And the next three games that followed were three of the very best examples of Canes hockey I\u2019ve ever been a part of. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That\u2019s who we are. And we showed it when it mattered. <\/p>\n
Before Game 1 against Vegas I was about as nervous as I\u2019ve been in a while. <\/p>\n
Those nights I\u2019d spend thinking about carrying the Cup to our guys, I\u2019d think a lot about the vets. Hallsy, Freddie, Marty, Ghost. Guys who hadn\u2019t won one. I wanted it for them. And it felt like now or never. I know those aren\u2019t good thoughts to have, and I didn\u2019t need extra pressure. But that\u2019s just how I felt. We needed this one. I never said that outl oud, but I know other guys felt that way. <\/p>\n
I saw it. <\/p>\n
Nobody was going to quit. That\u2019s an easy thing to say or to think. Probably a lot of teams think they have no quit. But how many teams can come from four goals down in the third period of a Cup Final game? How many teams can have their backs broken in a double-OT game after coming all the way back and then find a way to win the next one? The next three? That\u2019s what no quit looks like right there. We wanted to make every shift as difficult as possible for them. We didn\u2019t want to give them an inch. We didn\u2019t want to leave any doubt. <\/p>\n
Game 6, for me, was what this group was all about. On the road, Cup in the building, just playing the game we played all year. Four lines, everything we got every shift. Playing for the guy next to you. Playing for Carolina. When Nik scored that empty netter \u2026 what a feeling. Like a hug from an old friend. It felt like it had been 17 years, and it felt like it was yesterday. <\/p>\n
I saw the clip of Roddy and Fishy hugging as everybody jumped off the bench, and it made me emotional. Just two guys who have spent the past ten years together trying to figure this thing out. Trying to get us over the line. Two of the hardest working guys I know. I watched Fishy come in as a baby-faced Finnish kid who barely knew any English. Now he\u2019s got a little girl and his name\u2019s on the Cup. <\/p>\n
Man, stuff like that is what made that moment so special. <\/p>\n
The journey. <\/p>\n
Josh Lavallee\/NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n
I saw so many of these guys grow up. Turn into husbands, fathers. It just made it mean so much.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Everybody was jumping all over each other by the glass and I could see the Canes fans in the stands, and I just felt them, you know? That relief, that love, that joy. I knew what they had been through \u2026 but they kept believing in us. They\u2019re the best in the league.<\/p>\n
Then the moment came. The one that ran through my head all spring. I felt the Cup in my hands again and it was the same but it was also so different. It was something lost, something I\u2019d worked so hard to find again. Something I\u2019d dreamt about, prayed for, and there it was. I put it over my head and I skated it over to Freddie. A guy who meant the world to this team. A guy who never gave up. A champion. Hallsy, Marty, Fishy, Slavo \u2014 I could go up and down our whole roster. Watching everybody have their time, it\u2019s one of the greatest moments of my life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My journey back to that point was long. But it was just one of them. Each guy, each staff member, every Caniac everywhere had their own road to that point. And I\u2019m thankful to each and every one of them.<\/p>\n
It was a night I\u2019ll hold in my heart for the rest of my life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After everybody had a chance with the Cup, and all the confetti fell, I was on the ice in Vegas with my three brothers, and we were remembering a dream we used to have.<\/p>\n
-Jordan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I kept waking up in the middle of the night during the playoffs, and I\u2019d just stare at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-727594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}