With NHL hockey returning in 19 days, let us continue to reflect on the last season. It is a wonderful thing to have the beautiful distraction of professional hockey back, but its worth looking back at the scenes earlier this summer.
Let us continue where we left off, with the homemade Stanley Cup and its journey through the neighborhood.
We’ll share the pictures of the champions, and other scenes from the parade, but tonight, we share photos of friends taking swigs from the boy’s homemade Cup.
Folks from the City Oaks may recognize our spot. We posted upon the North Carolina state capitol, south side. This spot, nestled a few feet above the street, afforded us a great view as the parade route turned from Hillsboro to Salisbury to Morgan to Fayetteville.
A warm day, when the sun passed over the oaks around the capitol, it was nice to have a large homemade chalice to quench one’s thirst.
Young champions joined us and drank from the Cup.
The Cup found its way to other Bob Spazianos
We’ll make our way back to the parade shortly.
In the meantime, may you enjoy a chalice of victory.
Ok, there are 27 days until the NHL season is to resume.
My preferred team, the Carolina Hurricanes prevailed in the 2025-2026 season and brought the Stanley Cup to my town, the City of Oaks.
Earlier this summer, my family and I went to the parade. I took a ton of photographs. Some of them quite delightful.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be doling these images out. Stick around, you’ll see some smiles and legends. If you love Raleigh or the Canes or the other finer things in life, I think you’ll enjoy yourself.
For now, a prelude. My kid, #15, an up-and-coming defender in the Canes House League made his own Stanley Cup replica to take the parade.
While his mom took him to the hardware store, the kid did a fine job. Taking an empty paint gallon, some PVC, and his mom’s mixing bowl, he forged a unique replica.
And a little spray paint later…
…the boy has made a masterpiece.
We’ll be sharing photos of this Cup’s journey as it crosses paths with the Stanley Cup in the coming days. Stay tuned.
While I slowly consolidate Stanley Cup 2026 images to smile over and share, I must take a moment and reflect on a friendship and the infinite stories.
The two times the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup, people around me have made replica cups to boost the hype. Durham Taylor in 2006 and my son in 2026. Both delivered in the hype boost.
We will spend some time sharing the magic that my son’s 2026 Stanley is bringing the world. 2026’s story is still unfolding.
This blog post is about the 2006 Stanley Cup Replica, and its creator, Durham Taylor.
Durham was a great friend and extremely interesting character. Everyone who lived in Raleigh for any significant period over the last forty years has at least twelve quality stories about Durham.
Unfortunately, Durham’s story ended three years ago this month, but stories about him will never die. I have several, but this brief blog post is the story of the Stanley Cup he made and brought over to my house to watch Game 7 of the 2006 Stanley Cup Final.
Durham Taylor was many things, among them he was a very skilled carpenter. He built the unusually shaped deck for my old pad that he is standing on. (It was an unusual space he filled, and remains a fantastic little deck.)
Durham made quite a few beautiful and functional things. This cup is no exception.
Note that Durham’s Stanley composition is a wide base with a terraced pattern. It was fairly durable and functional. The wide base allowed us to acquire signatures that were gradually scribed into its glory.
The Stanley cup brought much honor to our household. We had been following the Canes closely that season and having this totem surely altered the games outcome.
I’m pleased that we recorded the last ten seconds of the game. That is our friend Durham screaming ‘Hell Yeah Bitches!’
It was a functional, following the game we filled it up and quenched our thirst from it.
Everyone got to have a pour from it.
A cup that magnificent could not be contained in our simple abode. Following the game, the cup made it up to the pub up the street.
Alas, after the first pub, my story and the cup’s story diverge. Some people say it spontaneously combusted at the 4th establishment it visited that evening.
Perhaps it is best that the fate of Durham Taylor’s Replica Stanley Cup remains unknown. Whilst its time on this earth was brief, the Cup certainly affected the planet’s rotation.
