Fans embrace 'Canes as team nears crown

Carolina is one win from making history.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A scoreboard picture of North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams brought boos from some of the Carolina Hurricanes fans. Sidney Lowe, the new North Carolina State coach, got the same treatment.
In North Carolina, basketball loyalties are passed down like family heirlooms.
But with the Hurricanes one win from bringing the first major professional team championship to North Carolina, the rabid 'Caniacs that fill the RBC Center, and the ticketless fans who party outside as the game goes on, have embraced hockey as they might a NASCAR champion or ACC MVP.
Fans in these parts are proving a Tar Heel can love a game played on the ice. So can a Demon Deacon, a Blue Devil, those running with a Wolfpack or sailing with the Pirates.
"Everybody for the longest time would argue that North Carolina was all about basketball," said East Carolina football coach Skip Holtz, who took time off from preparing the Pirates for next season to attended Game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals against the Edmonton Oilers in Raleigh.
"I think this is a great sports state," he said. "They follow it, they're rabid, they're animated. They're great sports fans, and they're going to follow a winner."
Loyal fans
Fans on Tobacco Road have had plenty of practice. Duke, North Carolina and North Carolina State have combined to win nine NCAA basketball championships and create fiercely loyal fan bases, as have fellow ACC member Wake Forest and chip-on-the-shoulder East Carolina.
Fans live in the same neighborhoods, eat at the same restaurants and send their kids to the same schools. They sometimes even share the same residence, making "A House Divided" bumper stickers a staple in two different shades of blue.
Then there's NASCAR, a sport that legend says was born by moonshiners hauling whiskey through the state's mountain hollows before coming of age on sun-baked speedways in places like Rockingham and North Wilkesboro.
Gov. Mike Easley may have made as many headlines for his attempts at stock-car driving than for anything else. In 2003, Easley crashed a race car while driving about 120 mph at Lowe's Motor Speedway outside Charlotte. Last year, he lost control of a stock car and ran over a downtown Raleigh curb during a celebration of the state's motorsports history.
"North Carolinians are ardent about their pastimes," Easley said, "including basketball, NASCAR -- and now, hockey."
Family parties
That's clear just from a single look around the parking lot at the RBC Center before a game. Fans have full-scale tailgate parties while children play street hockey, pausing only long enough for a car to pull into a space. There are plenty without tickets who show up just to be a part of the game-day experience.
The former Hartford Whalers arrived in North Carolina before the 1997-98 season, but spent the first two years playing in Greensboro -- 80 miles west -- while the RBC Center was under construction.
The Hurricanes intrigued the fans by reaching the NHL playoffs for the first time in Raleigh in 2001, and followed with a surprising run to the Stanley Cup finals in '02. But Carolina missed the playoffs the next two seasons, and the league's labor dispute wiped out the entire 2004-05 season.
The Hurricanes could not have done a better job to rebuild their following once back on the ice, turning in the most successful regular season in franchise history. Now they're back in the finals, and defenseman Aaron Ward can feel the difference.
"When we went to the Stanley Cup that first year, it was kind of that newness," Ward said. "It was just, 'I want to be part of it.' Now it's, 'I have been part of it, I am a Carolina Hurricane."'
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