Raleigh, N.C ? Rod Brind’Amour lifted the Stanley Cup above his head, tears of joy streaming down his face. This one was for the captain and all those Carolina old-timers whose names are going on hockey’s most revered trophy for the first time.

Of course, they couldn’t have done it without the kid.

Rookie goalie Cam Ward stopped nearly everything that came his way, finishing off a brilliant playoffs with a rock-solid performance in Game 7. The Hurricanes skated away with their first Stanley Cup title, beating Edmonton, 3-1, in the winner-take-all finale Monday night.

“It’s just surreal,” said Brind’Amour, the team’s 35-year-old captain, his eyes still red after he left the ice. “The guys on this team have been through years and years of heartache. After Game 6, I knew there’s no way we were letting this go. Too many guys on this team deserve it.”

A couple of low-scoring defenseman, Frantisek Kaberle and Aaron Ward, put Carolina ahead. Justin Williams finished off the Oilers, scoring an empty-net goal with 1:01 remaining after Edmonton playoff star Fernando Pisani broke up Cam Ward’s shutout early in the third.

Oilers defenseman Chris Pronger, a stalwart throughout the playoffs, gave up the puck in the Carolina zone and wound up making a helpless dive to block Williams’ gimme into the goal that had been vacated by Jussi Markkanen in favor of an extra skater.

Bret Hedican, among the contingent of 30-something players who never had won the cup, leaped in the air after Williams’ shot went in. The crowd of nearly 19,000, which stood throughout the game, went into a frenzy.

The Carolina Hurricanes celebrate with the Stanley Cup after defeating the Edmonton Oilers, 3-1, in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals. The Hurricanes won the Cup with Monday night's victory in Raleigh, N.C.

The cup has come to Tobacco Road – territory best known for college basketball and NASCAR racing.

“I can’t describe it,” said Hedican, who lost in two previous trips to the finals. “Both times were gut-wrenching. I’ve got the scars. But tonight, all that work, all that hard work, and our team winning, it all paid off.”

It paid off, too, for Glen Wesley, Doug Weight and Ray Whitney. Along with Brind’Amour and Hedican, they had been in the league for a total of 78 seasons without winning the cup.

Now, they’ll all get their names on it. Weight, who didn’t play because of an injured right shoulder, put on his uniform and came out to hoist the cup. It tilted a bit to the right side, but he didn’t come close to dropping it.

He and the others waited too long to slip up now.

“I still can’t believe it,” said Wesley, a 37-year-old defenseman who might retire now that he has his title. “It honestly feels like a dream to me.”

Cam Ward, the Conn Smythe Trophy winner as the most valuable player in the playoffs, wasn’t even Carolina’s No. 1 goalie at the beginning of the postseason, but the 22-year-old rookie got the call when Martin Gerber struggled in an opening round against Montreal.

The young star wound up winning more games in the playoffs (15) than he did backing up Gerber during the regular season (14).

“The kid came in when we were down and out,” Brind’Amour said. “He brought us to life. Goaltending wins championships, make no mistake about it. We had the best goalie in the playoffs.”

The Hurricanes were born in the old World Hockey Assn. as the Boston-based New England Whalers, and entered the NHL in 1979 playing out of Hartford. When their demands for a new arena were turned aside, the team headed south in 1997.

The first two years in Carolina were a dismal experience, the team forced to play 80 miles away in Greensboro while a new arena was built in Raleigh. So few fans turned up in the beginning that the upper deck was curtained off.

Now, the Hurricanes are champions, capitalizing on their second trip to the finals. Four years ago, they were beaten in five games by Detroit.

The Oilers have nothing to be ashamed of, becoming the first eighth-seeded team to make the finals under the current format. But they failed to bring Canada its first champion since Montreal in 1993, or Edmonton its first cup since 1990, when the remnants of the Gretzky-Messier-Coffey-Fuhr dynasty won the last of its five titles in seven years.