In another life, you would’ve heard some passing complaints about the rain as you walked through the overcast tailgate lots outside of PNC Arena ahead of Game 1 on Monday.
But in this life, all I heard was the cracking of Storm Brew cans, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” by Whitney Houston and, out of nowhere, a high-pitched scream.
I can’t make this up. I turned around and saw the person screaming was Rod Brind’Amour’s youngest son, Brooks. He was celebrating a goal he scored in a makeshift street hockey game among the tailgates.
The relationship between the Brind’Amour family and Raleigh, N.C., is hard to explain to anyone on the outside. Brind’Amour is a living legend in the local hockey scene — if we’re being honest, there probably isn’t much of a local hockey scene without him. But at the same time, he and his family blend right in and participate in the community as anyone else would.