- Rod Brind’Amour hid a 35-pound cinder block in the Canes gym for five years
- The “blue collar press” was secretly training the team to lift the Stanley Cup
- Read below for the parade moment and Brind’Amour’s reveal on Pat McAfee
A gray cinder block got the full champion treatment at the Carolina Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup parade on Saturday.
Forward Jordan Martinook carried the 35-pound slab onstage in downtown Raleigh and set it at the foot of the podium, right beside the actual Stanley Cup. That block carries the best backstory of the whole title run.
Brind’Amour planted it in the team’s gym five years ago and built a drill around it. After every workout, players had to pick it up and press it overhead. He called it the “blue collar press” and sold it as a reminder of the work ethic it takes to stick in the NHL.
The truth was sneakier. The Stanley Cup weighs 34.6 pounds. The cinder block weighs about the same. Carolina’s coach had his guys rehearsing the Cup lift for years and never said a word.
He gave it up on the Pat McAfee Show a couple days after Carolina beat Vegas for its second title:
Strength coach Bill Burniston tracked down the block at Home Depot and matched it to the Cup’s weight. The secret held until before Game 6, when Brind’Amour finally told the room what they had been hauling overhead all along.
The block got its own curtain call on Saturday, carried out beside the Cup as fans jammed downtown Raleigh. Carolina hasn’t stopped celebrating since the final horn:
Catch Brind’Amour walk through the run and the gag with McAfee:
Five years of fake reps, one very real Cup. The block earned its ride through downtown Raleigh.
