I got my picture with the Cup in 2002, the Hurricanes first made it to the finals. I lived in Wilmington NC at the time and was able to get a picture with my Pronger jersey on along with my wife (at the time) and my one year old son. Of course as a 1 year old is prone to do, the picture has him grabbing hold of the Cup, a no no for the most part!!
It was funny that of the several hundred people lined up for pictures, 60% were sporting jerseys from other teams!! Flash forward to this season, I went to Raleigh to see the Blues/Canes game and I bet at least 30% of the fans were pulling for the Blues. We even got a decent Lets Go Blues chant going. I guess NC will always be college basketball heaven!!
Line was really short here at the time, lol. Very few hockey fans at the time. Now with a minor team that just survives (they have been ECHL, CHL, now I think they are an NAHL Jr team) mostly from all the winter Texans from northern states and Canada that come down during the winter, we now actually have an indoor ice arena besides the event center that hosts AFL2, NBA D league, and hockey. With an ice arena comes skaters and we actually have some youth teams and some other older leagues. We even have people from Mexico that come to play.
Edit: Looks like the team left just prior to this year, lol. But left behind was the first indoor ice sheet in the Rio Grande Valley, where kids are learning to skate and play. Last year they had a camp hosted by one of the former Detroit Redwings players, saw the flyer, can't remember who it was.
