For five years, Rod Brind’Amour secretly used a 35-pound cinder block to condition his players for one specific task: hoisting the Stanley Cup.
After years of coming up short, the Carolina Hurricanes finally crested the summit, being the final team left standing and once again capturing the Stanley Cup.
While the team won due to hard work, determination and loads of talent all clicking at the right time, there's also a case to be made for a little bit of manifestation.
Because for five years, Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour had been secretly preparing his team for the exact moment when they'd become champions.
A story leaked directly after the Canes' victory, that the organization had been preparing the team for the moment they lifted the Stanley Cup by having them lift a cinder block every day that weighed about the same.
Initially, the team called it their "blue collar press," where they'd do one rep after every workout, taking that moment to think about the "blue collar" work as well as someone important to them that helped get them to where they are today.
And Brind'Amour went on The Pat McAfee Show a couple days after the team won their second Cup in franchise history and revealed that that was in fact true.
"Five years ago, my strength coach — I've got the best strength coach in the league: Bill Burniston — and our medical guy, Doug Bennett, they went into Home Depot and they were trying to figure out something to do to finish off your day and they put it on the scale and it ended up being 35 pounds, this cinder block," Brind'Amour said. "And then it just hit them that that was the same weight as the Stanley Cup. So they sent me a picture of it and I'm like, 'You've gotta bring that in.'"
Brind'Amour has been a coach that believes in things like the process and practicing the way you want to play, so for him, this cinder block was another perfect way to prepare his team for the ultimate goal.
"We're a big detail team too," Brind'Amour said. "Like everything is in the details, everything matters and we prepare for everything."
For five years, it was a secret that Brind'Amour kept in his back pocket and he didn't ever reveal the truth about the cinder block until this playoff run, where the Hurricanes went the furthest they ever had since 2006.
"We didn't tell the guys," Brind'Amour said. "For five years, we had this thing sitting there and we finished every day by lifting it. They thought, and it is, representing the blue collar worker, hard work and remembering someone in your life that has put you here. That was who you were lifting for and I was kind of holding this back about how it's also preparing you for the day that you raise the Stanley Cup. So five years we've had this thing sitting there and [during this run] Billy comes to me and says, 'You've gotta tell them the real reason.' I was gonna wait till after we won, because we hadn't yet, but then I'm like, we've gotta throw all the chips on the table here. So I told the boys the real reason why we have this is because we prepare for everything. So you're lifting it because when your day comes, you'll know exactly what you're doing with it."
Brind'Amour also joked how he was glad that the team ended up winning in the end because it makes for a good story and makes him look good as a coach and motivator as well.
"It's cool because now I can say it actually worked," Brind'Amour said. "We wouldn't be talking about it if it didn't work."
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