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2006 Carolina Hurricanes

2006 Sports: Peyton's Party & The Mason Miracle

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This article offers a snapshot of 2006 sports, a year that saw Peyton Manning get a long-sought Super Bowl win and a stunning Final Four run by George Mason lead up the year.

GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTS
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The year 2006 was a long time coming for Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts. The franchise had arrived as a contender in the 1999 season, but suffered repeated playoff frustration, especially at the hands of Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.
Perhaps it was fitting that en route to his first Super Bowl title, Peyton had to overcome a significant stretch of bad playoff football, fall into a 21-3 hole against the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game, before finally rallying to win and eventually bringing home the Lombardi Trophy.
Indianapolis had more than New England to contend with in the AFC. The 2006 AFC playoffs were as stacked as any one side of an NFL postseason bracket has ever been. The four best teams in football were in the AFC, and the best of them all—at least during the regular season—was the San Diego Chargers.
The playoffs would prove to be the last, futile stand of Charger head coach Marty Schottenheimer, who had won as consistently as any man who has ever coached this game since he began as boss in Cleveland midway through the 1984 season. But Schottenheimer’s playoff frustrations were legendary, and 2006 added to the list.
Read more about the 2006 Indianapolis Colts and the entire stacked bracket in the 2006 AFC playoffs.
If the AFC playoff bracket was stacked in 2006, then the NCAA Tournament bracket was positively gutted. No #1 seeds made the Final Four, including UConn, the top-heavy favorite to win the whole thing. And no story was more stunning than George Mason, who came from the 11-seed in the East to upset UConn and make the Final Four. The Mason Miracle, even though it didn’t end in a national title, remains the historical signature of the 2006 NCAA Tournament.
Read more about the 2006 George Mason basketball run.

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It was the Florida basketball team that went on to win the Final Four, and it was part of an amazing year in Gainesville. The Gators became the first team to win the NCAA basketball and football titles in the same academic year. Billy Donovan’s basketball team beat George Mason and UCLA to win the Final Four, and then Urban Meyer’s football program dismantled Ohio State to capture the BCS National Championship. Read more about the 2006 Florida Gators—both hoops and football.
The football crown for Florida was unexpected. In 2006, SEC dominance was not taken as a rule of life—the conference had just one national championship in the previous seven seasons. What most college football fans had been focusing on was the buildup to the Michigan-Ohio State game, one that featured the teams ranked 1-2 in the country and promising to be the biggest game in the history of a storied rivalry.
Even though the winner didn’t go on, as expected to claim the national championship, it was still a game worth remembering, from the anticipation to the aftermath. Read more about the 2006 Michigan-Ohio State game.
The Fiesta Bowl didn’t impact the national championship race, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t memorable. The Boise State Broncos went undefeated and cracked the BCS, getting an invitation to play the Oklahoma Sooners on New Year’s Night. Many observers–myself included–felt this would be the game when unbeaten midmajors would be completely exposed and the major bowls again restricted to teams from the power conference. The only thing exposed that night in Phoenix was our ignorance.
Boise State let it all hang out. They ran the hook-and-trail, mixed in some other razzle-dazzle and took OU to overtime. Trailing in OT, 42-35, Boise scored a touchdown and then decided to win or lose it with a two-point conversion. The “Statue Of Liberty” trick play produced the conversion and with their 43-42 win, Boise had produced one of college football’s great upsets.
They have since gone on to win regular seasons games against quality power conference competition, and other midmajor teams have gotten opportunities to play in big bowl games–including TCU, who won the Rose Bowl following the 2010 season. It all had its roots in a memorable night in the desert.

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Three more teams won championships in 2006. The St. Louis Cardinals were coming off consecutive years where they had dominant regular seasons, but came up short of a World Series title. The 2006 team had one of the most pedestrian regular seasons ever seen by any playoff team, but turned it on in October and won a title.
The Carolina Hurricanes turned the focus of Tobacco Road away from basketball and onto the ice for one glorious spring as they won the Stanley Cup. And the Miami Heat, with couple of Los Angeles imports in Shaquille O’Neal and Pat Riley, and led by the young and dynamic Dwayne Wade, won the NBA title.
Read more at the following links of the 2006 title runs for the St. Louis Cardinals, Carolina Hurricanes and Miami Heat.
The 2006 St. Louis Cardinals Break Down The World Series Door
The 2006 Carolina Hurricanes Turn Tobacco Road Into Hockey Country
The 2006 Miami Heat & Their NBA Championship Run

The 2006 Carolina Hurricanes Turn Tobacco Road Into Hockey Country

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When it comes to sports, Tobacco Road is known mainly for its basketball, particularly that of North Carolina and Duke. But the 2006 Carolina Hurricanes gave the region a memorable spring where hockey was pre-eminent. The Hurricanes followed a strong regular season by winning the franchise’s first and only Stanley Cup.

GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTS
Start reading today. 

Carolina was built primarily on its offense. 21-year-old center Eric Stall scored 45 goals and dished 55 assists, as he led an attack that finished third in the NHL in goals scored. Justin Williams and Rod Brind’Amour were 30-goal scorers, as was Erik Cole.

The Hurricanes struggled defensively, finished 18th in the league. The problem was in the net, and over the course of the season, 21-year-old Cam Ward eventually supplanted Martin Gerber as the starting goalie. Carolina still got enough defense to go 52-22-8, win the Southeast Division and earn the #2 seed in the Eastern Conference.

Carolina’s postseason had an inauspicious beginning, with two losses to the Montreal Canadiens. The Hurricanes stormed back to win four consecutive games and advance. The momentum continued in the second round, as Carolina beat New Jersey 6-0 to open the series and cruised to the conference finals in five games.

The Buffalo Sabres had upset the East’s top seed, the Ottawa Senators, so it would be Buffalo-Carolina for the Eastern Conference championship. The Sabres grabbed the first game by 3-2 count. Carolina answered with a 4-3 win in Game 2 that wasn’t as close as it looked—the Hurricanes led 4-1 in the third period and Buffalo’s final goal came with three seconds left.

Carolina traveled north, and Ward played his worst game of the playoffs in Game 3, being chased from the game and in spite of two goals from Cory Stillman, Carolina lost 4-3. Gerber got the start in Game 4 and whatever problems the veteran had in the regular season, he paid for them in full with this game. Gerber saved all 22 shots fired at home and Carolina tied the series with a 4-zip win.

The next two games were overtime affairs. Playing in front of the home crowd in Game 5, Carolina trailed 3-2 with ten minutes to play. Brind’Amour scored a power play goal to tie it, and Stillman converted another power play in OT. Carolina tried a similar path in Game 6, tying the game with four minutes left, but this time it was Buffalo who won in overtime.

Game 7 was back in Carolina, and the Hurricanes found themselves trailing 2-1 after two periods. Stillman again came up big, with two third-period assists in a three-goal flurry that sent Carolina to the Finals with a 4-2 win.

The Western Conference had been gutted by upsets, and the 2006 Edmonton Oilers shocked everyone by winning the conference as an 8-seed. It was the Oilers’ first time in the Finals since the Wayne Gretzky/Mark Messier period that saw the franchise win five Stanley Cups from 1984-90. If Carolina was going to win the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals they were going to have to beat a team that seemed to have destiny riding with them.

Game 1 was a roller-coaster, with Carolina jumping out to a 3-0 lead, blowing it and sitting in a 4-4 tie late in the third period. Brind’Amour scored with 32 seconds left to win it. Game 2 went much easier, as Carolina scored three power play goals, Ward saved all 25 shots he saw and the Hurricanes won 5-0.

The series went to Edmonton, and while the Oilers got a 2-1 win to make it a series, Carolina answered with a victory by the same score that seemed to give the Hurricanes firm control of the Finals.

With a chance to clinch in front of the home fans, Carolina might have come out tight, because Edmonton peppered them for three first period goals in Game 5. The Hurricanes rallied behind two goals from Staal and eventually forced overtime, but the Oilers won 4-3 and kept the series going.

Game 6 was a defensive disaster, and it wasn’t all about the goalie. Ward was exposed to 34 shots, as Edmonton rolled to a 4-0 win. Destiny was still alive and heading back to Tobacco Road for a Game 7.

The Hurricanes would win a seventh game that was good, but not epic. They led a tight 2-1 game before an empty net goal with a minute left made it permissible to start the celebration. Brind’Amour finished the playoffs with 12 goals. Staal had 19 postseason assists. But the star was Ward, who allowed just 2.14 goals per game in the 2006 Stanley Cup playoffs and was named the winner of the Conn Smythe Award as postseason MVP.

For one glorious spring, the 2006 Carolina Hurricanes had turned their home region into hockey country.