How ‘Tarps Off’ changed the Hurricanes’ Game 2 fortunes — and maybe the Cup Final
RALEIGH, N.C. — When the video board asks you to go “tarps off,” you say “yes.”
And with the Carolina Hurricanes trailing the Vegas Golden Knights by two goals on Thursday, about 10 minutes from falling in a 2-0 hole in the Stanley Cup Final, that was the suggestion from Carolina’s event presentation team. Fans obliged in droves, popping off their shirts and bringing a building that had stagnated into stressed silence back to the top of its register.
Within moments, Carolina center Logan Stankoven scored to make it 2-1. Within a few minutes, the game was tied 3-3 and headed to overtime. And by the end of the night, Seth Jarvis had scored a power-play goal that sent the crowd even further into madness and changed the shape of the series, which now heads to Las Vegas for Saturday’s Game 3.
Correlation is not causation. We’re not going to say that Hurricanes’ fans “tarps off” moment — the latest installment in a cross-sport epidemic of (largely) male shirtlessness — led to their team’s comeback.
Jarvis, though, sounds like a believer. “It’s not warm in there,” he said postgame. “That’s kind of what kick-started our whole little press there in the third.”
It’s a movement pic.twitter.com/WgzdZ6V8Na
— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) June 5, 2026
The person most directly responsible for the prompt, Hurricanes vice president of entertainment and presentation Jason Danby, would rather share the credit. “There’s 20,000 people in that building who are willing to do whatever it takes to win,” he told The Athletic on Friday, “and we’re just a handful of them.”
Director Christine Williams, stage manager Leah Bellio and control room specialist Nickolai Clarke are instrumental to the overall event presentation operation, Danby said, and played a major role in Game 2. Danby did admit, though — begrudgingly — that the “Tarps off for the boys?” prompt was his idea. The saying has kicked around in hockey circles for some time, long before it occupied its current cultural space, and it popped back into Danby’s head at the right moment. He asked font operator Robert Chapman to work up a lower-third graphic. Within a few minutes, it was on the screen. Shortly after, Danby’s team had identified the fans who were ready to get semi-nude.
Ideas don’t always make it to the big show; in Carolina’s 5-4 Game 1 loss, Danby’s team was ready to deploy a “rally unicorn,” a stuffed animal that they’d noticed a young fan holding in the stands, but the timing never quite lined up. In Game 2 all the necessary pieces fell into place, and a meme was born.
The “tarps off” concept, for the record, picked up steam during the 2025 college football season and has taken over Major League Baseball, as a updated version of the rally cap and a form of protest. We’re trying not use the term “viral trend,” but … it’s a viral trend.
“You just try tap into the moment,” Danby said “It’s not really even about your specific opinion or a moment of inspiration or whatever. (The point) is just to tap into the wider psychology of the moment and sense what everyone needs.”
“I think sometimes the simplest thing is the best, and sometimes, it’s five words on a video board.”
The Canes did a ‘tarps off for the boys’ Jumbotron gimmick right before the Canes scored a couple goals to tie it up.
Tarps have to stay off, right?#SoundTheSiren pic.twitter.com/8SoZ6JcHa8
— Tim Donnelly (@DonnellySports) June 5, 2026
As technology continues to open more lanes for creativity, the expectations surrounding in-game entertainment crews have increased. Given the cost of tickets, Danby said, fans deserve to get their money’s worth. That’s part of why the Hurricanes are willing to roll the dice on programming like “Tarps Off,” or a pregame map graphic that depicts the entirety of North America as rooting against the Golden Knights.
“Hockey’s a pretty risky sport,” Danby said. “If we’re not taking risks on the video board above it, what are we doing? We’re there to fit the environment. When a (coach) Rob Brind’Amour team is taking the risks they’re taking, we’re gonna be taking some of them, too.”
And, of course, when the series returns to Raleigh, fans at Lenovo Center will likely be able to purchase “Tarps Off” T-shirts. Danby doesn’t expect to go back to the well on the video board, though.
His reasoning there is simple: “I don’t think we’ll be down in Game 5.”