Mark Spector

RALEIGH, N.C. - Now we know what happened to Rod Brind'Amour in the last couple of games of this Stanley Cup finals.

The heart of the Carolina Hurricanes, Brind'Amour's hands had turned to stone, and his feet to lead. Turns out the old ticker had hardened up as well. That's what being this close to a lifelong dream can do to a guy.

"Since Game 5 I've had this big lump in my chest," Brind'Amour admitted after the Carolina Hurricanes had dispatched Edmonton by a 3-1 score, earning the 'Canes captain his first Stanley Cup ring after 17 seasons in the NHL. "You want it so bad — not just for yourself, but for the guy sitting beside you. Your Dad. Your kids ... there are so many people you're thinking about who are pulling for you. It's exhausting.”

The moment that will be frozen in time for Brind'Amour. Of all things, an empty-net goal.

When Justin Williams grabbed the puck, cruised over center ice, then the blue-line, and fired the puck into an empty Oilers net, it ended a career of close misses for Brind'Amour. Imagine — someone else's empty-net goal, something to cherish for a lifetime.

"It was just surreal," Brind'Amour said. "Just such a weight off everyone shoulders. I realized: That was it. We were going to win. We have been through a lot. So many guys on this team, and the years, and the ache.

After Game 6, I was just thinking, 'There was no way we could let this go. There are too many guys who deserve this.' It all came to a head. All that emotion."

This will go down as the first Stanley Cup of the new National Hockey League, and the best finals — Games 1 through 7 — that the league has seen perhaps since the days of Wayne Gretzky and the old Oilers. The style of play, the speed of the games, the ability to come back from a deficit. None of this was there in the last finals, when Tampa Bay beat Calgary in '04.

With the absence of clutching and grabbing — ironically, the style that ruled for most of the careers of all those Carolina oldsters — no lead was safe. In a series, or in a game. That's what made this Cup memorable, and that's what left the Oilers believing that they could turn this game around, right 'til the end.

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"We left it all out there," said Oilers center Shawn Horcoff. "Let's be honest. We were down 3-1 (in the series). To force a seventh game, it was an honor.

"We gave it everything we had."

Edmonton, the first eighth seed to get this far under the current playoff system, had spent the last two months believing in themselves. In turn, whenever they required some last-minute heroics or a new burst of energy, the hockey gods had provided.

Slide show   Stanley Cup finals See images from Hurricanes-Oilers

Monday night in Raleigh, the tap ran dry.

"Best feeling I've ever had, 18 years in the game," said Carolina defenseman Glen Wesley. The defenseman had twice lost to Edmonton as a youngster with Boston, and was one of a handful of Hurricane veterans who were trying to beat the retirement clock and win their first Cup. "To wait 18 years and finally experience this? It was never, never about me. It was about every guy in the locker room, and it wasn't about one individual."

Cam Ward, the stellar little goalie who grew up in the Edmonton suburb of Sherwood Park, took home the Conn Smythe trophy as playoff MVP. It took a 22-year-old kid to get all these graybeards over the top. Go figure.

FREE VIDEO Refuse to lose June 19: Emotional ‘Canes captain Rod Brind’Amour talks about his team’s will to win Game 7.

Ward wasn't even the Hurricanes' No. 1 goalie when the playoffs started. Martin Gerber was. Now he's a Conn Smythe winner, the first rookie goalie to do that since Patrick Roy in '86.

"The kid came in when we were down and out," Brind'Amour said. "Goaltending wins you championships, there's no doubt about that. I got to raise the Cup because of that kid."

"I can't believe this happened," said Mike Commodore, a defenseman who lost a Game 7 to Tampa Bay while manning the Flames blueline in '04. "You know, we worked hard — we worked hard all year. And we deserved this."