Should Game 5 be necessary, NBC will possibly be showing Raleigh’s downtown to a national audience. Wouldn’t it be great if the two best-lit buildings, Progress I and Hannover Two, went red in honor of the Hurricanes’ championship run? I’ve emailed and phoned people from the Chamber of Commerce to the City Manager’s office to Progress Energy themselves. While many responded positively to the idea, the general consensus is that there isn’t enough time to coordinate a plan to pull it off. Unfortunately we still have people in charge who lack the foresight, initiative, and civic pride to pull off something that is routinely done on New York City’s Empire State Building.
See these examples of cool: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7.
thats b.s…. there’s definitely time to have them light it up… they have the colored light bulbs on hand at at least one of the towers, I believe Hanover II… try contacting the operations/facilities people at each of the towers… the rbc tower is another possibility… the red lights are a great idea! In other news, I just saw that they’ve announced that any post-cup parade/celebration will definitely not be downtown, which is pretty lame… and a bit of a cop out and I bet an excuse for the hurricanes to keep it at the rbc center which would definitely be cheaper… sure the construction is going on but there will probably be 10,000 folks or so down in Moore Square over the course of today for the Arrested Development show… not everyone needs to see the stage… another location would be the court of the carolinas area at nc state… kerry/edwards spoke there… that way they could at least have a parade that started downtown.
I agree with Chris that it seems like BS that they wouldn’t have time to pull it off. How hard is it to change lights?
I am a little underwhelmed at the city’s response to the Hurricanes. I just don’t think many of the citys’ leaders get it. The city is spending millions and others are spending B$$ on DT and free pubicity is staring them in the face and the biggest response is a “couple of pounds of cue” and “a case of beer.” I have been told by “Meeker’s team” that he does not like Hockey. I have never seen him at a game. Maybe more has gone on behind the scene. If they win the Cup, I just don’t think many of the city’s leaders have a clue how big it is, especially with RBC based here along with the arena sponsor. This ought to bring in much Canadian business. I bet if this was a big “boat show” in the new convention center, they would turn the lights a different color if asked.
Could you imagine Thomas Crowder at the game?? He would probably argue the scoreboard TVs are too big ? OK, I’ll stop…
Go Canes
Bob – You’re absolutely right, it seems that the city really doesn’t have a clue. That’s been the case ever since the decision was made to build the arena on the outskirts of town. The philosophy seems to have been, lets make it as easy as possible to get people in/out of the arena, completely ignoring the opportunity to get people downtown and/or engaging neighboring business, restaurants, etc. Lets encourage people to drink in the parking lot, yet place in a location that makes it inevitable that people will drink and drive.
In addition to all the downtown buildings lit up red, maybe even ncsu would put in their red bulbs on the belltower.