MLILY Mattresses in Raleigh, NC

After finding some momentum at the end of a six-game road trip, the Carolina Hurricanes return home to host the Nashville Predators on Friday in Raleigh, N.C.

The Hurricanes were only 2-4-0 on the road swing, but salvaged the trip by winning their last two games. Carolina’s last stop was a 2-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday, with Jordan Staal capitalizing on a misplay by Wings goalie Ville Husso to score the game-winning goal 11:49 into the second period.

“Started (as) the road trip from hell for a bit there, and obviously the boys grinded the last few and found a way to get in a little bit of a groove,” Staal said.

The victory in Detroit improves Carolina’s away record to a modest 8-10-0, as the team has enjoyed far more success on home ice. The Hurricanes are 8-2-1 in Raleigh this season, and the Predators’ visit marks the start of a three-game homestand.

Nashville is 6-7-0 in away games this season, but 4-1-0 in its last five road dates. That recent success has come within an 11-3-0 overall mark for the Predators in their last 14 games, as the team has rebounded strongly after a slow start to the season.

The Predators’ 3-2 overtime win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday saw them surrender a 2-0 lead and get outshot by a 39-22 margin. However, goalie Juuse Saros stopped 37 of the Flyers’ shots, and Filip Forsberg scored 18 seconds into overtime to secure the two points for Nashville.

“Obviously on the coaching part, we’re not too proud of the amount of shots we’re giving up,” Predators coach Andrew Brunette said. “But individually for (Saros), outstanding, kind of as expected, as advertised. I think he’s getting a little bit more comfortable in the way we play a little bit.”

Philadelphia’s 39 shots were tied for the most by any Predators opponent this season. This doesn’t bode well against the Hurricanes, whose 34.2 shots-per-game average is among the best in the NHL.

Saros has a .953 save percentage and a 5-0-0 record over his last five games. Because the Predators also play Saturday against the Washington Capitals, Saros and Kevin Lankinen figure to split the back-to-back starts in some order.

Likewise for Carolina, Pyotr Kochetkov’s start against the Red Wings on Thursday means that Antti Raanta will probably be in net against Nashville. Raanta has struggled to an .860 save percentage over 13 games this season, and has recently been losing playing time to the in-form Kochetkov.

Forsberg leads all Nashville skaters in goals (15) and assists (18) this season.

Hurricanes forward Jack Drury has four points (one goal, three assists) during a four-game points streak.

Two of the NHL’s hottest penalty-kill units will battle Friday. The Hurricanes are 20-for-20 on penalty kills in their last seven games, while the Predators are 19-for-20 on kills in their last six games.

Nashville won both meetings with Carolina last season.

When an athlete’s playing career ends, they often go into coaching, broadcasting or business. That’s what one N.C. State basketball alumnus is doing.

Cameron Bennerman played for the Wolfpack from 2003-2006, leading the team in scoring during his final season. He finished with 422 points, averaging 14.1 points per game, earning All-ACC Third Team.

He recently launched Brand Dream, a basketball-focused lifestyle and clothing enterprise.

“It’s here to inspire and motivate people to dream and stay true to their process,” Bennerman said.

Bennerman played professionally after his Wolfpack career, during which he began having conversations about how to succeed in higher levels of basketball. He saw two primary things: young players not knowing the work it takes to succeed and a lack of vision or passion.

Brand Dream is an all-encompassing entity, Bennerman said. It provides product design, content creation, podcasts, digital marketing, athlete and musician partnerships, and hosts events such as basketball camps.

“With all the knowledge and skills that I’ve acquired over my career, we pretty much created a vessel where we can excel in providing some nice services and products for people to be inspired by,” Bennerman said. “It’s been very authentic and it’s been very organic.”

The company recently released its first product – an exclusive T-shirt and signed copy of Bennerman’s book, “The Process.” It plans to host a pop-up event with North Carolina business Social Status early next year at its Greensboro and Raleigh locations.

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Bennerman said the limited-release launch and media work is only the start of what he wants to accomplish. Brand Dream will hopefully grow enough to start a college called Dream State University.

This isn’t like LeBron James’ I Promise School, which is a public elementary school in Akron, Ohio. Bennerman’s idea is to have a university.

Bennerman wants the school located on an already-existing campus – like Nike’s in Oregon – where players can receive additional coaching and hands-on learning opportunities with standardized curriculum, similar to vocational training and some internships. He wants players to leave with improved athletic abilities, skills for their resumes and certifications.

The goal is to help players improve athletic abilities, while giving them skills and certifications for success after sports.

Much of the lessons and skills Bennerman wants to share with others comes from his time in Raleigh. He remembers being a kid who attended games at Reynolds Coliseum, trying to get a high five.

Years later, he became the player other kids looked up to. His time with the Pack provided an education, while establishing a foundation and understanding of himself and others. There was a sense of toughness and being an underdog – a need to prove – that stuck with him.

“My time at NC State was all about the process, growth and just trying to figure out who you are – on and off the court,” Bennerman said.

Bennerman said his team has more than 10 years of experience and believes it can achieve this feat. Brand Dream has creative projects in progress and is developing partnerships with major organizations, so it can move forward with the broader plan.

“A lot of this stuff, we’re talking into existence because we’re ready for it,” Bennerman said. “We have documents, we’re legal, we’re copyrighted and all that.”

Fans can support the efforts by purchasing the T-shirt and book bundle and following social media for updates.

The federal government has pledged nearly $1.1 billion to help the N.C. Department of Transportation begin building a modern passenger rail line between Raleigh and Richmond, Virginia.

In reality, nearly all of that money will be spent in Wake County.

NCDOT will use most of it to transform an old railroad between downtown Raleigh and Wake Forest that now handles a couple of slow-moving freight trains a day into one for passenger trains that go up to 110 mph.

It will mean all new tracks and signals and building bridges and underpasses to eliminate every street crossing. It also means expanding Raleigh Union Station, with a new concourse and platform, and building a new train station in Wake Forest.

“What we’re doing in a lot of ways is turning a railroad that was originally built in the 1840s into one of the most technologically advanced railroads in the Southeast,” says Jason Orthner, head of NCDOT’s Rail Division.

NCDOT is working with the State of Virginia to create a high-speed rail connection between the two state capitals, speeding rail travel between Washington, D.C., and the Southeast. The federal grant announced last week will allow the department to complete the most difficult and expensive section through North Raleigh and suburban Wake County.

When that work is done, the state will use the line for the Piedmont, the Amtrak train that now makes four round trips a day between Raleigh and Charlotte.

NCDOT and Amtrak are providing a 20% match to the federal grant, so the amount spent will top $1.3 billion. Here’s what we know about NCDOT’s plans:

The rail corridor is the second oldest in North Carolina. It was built by the Raleigh & Gaston Railroad, which connected the capital with a town on the Roanoke River across from present-day Roanoke Rapids.

The Seaboard Air Line Railroad took over the Raleigh & Gaston in about 1900 and opened a more direct route to Richmond from the town of Norlina that became Seaboard’s main line.

After a series of mergers, Seaboard became CSX, which abandoned the tracks north of Norlina (but kept the corridor) and downgraded the line south of the town. Today, CSX serves local freight customers with trains that go no faster than 25 mph.

The old Seaboard main line became known as the S-line some decades ago, because of the shape it makes when it turned west at Raleigh and then south again at Cary through Apex. S-line has become short-hand for the Raleigh-to-Richmond project.

CSX has sold the corridor north of Norlina to the State of Virginia, which will build new tracks. NCDOT is in final negotiations with the railroad to buy the rest of the corridor between Norlina and downtown Raleigh.

Once the sale is completed, NCDOT will own most of the property it needs to rebuild the S-line. It may need to acquire some property where it plans stations and at some bridge crossings and other spots.

NCDOT has been doing planning and engineering work for years and is ready to get started on some pieces of the project in the coming months. First up will be new bridges and underpasses to eliminate the crossings at Durant and New Hope Church roads in Raleigh and Rogers Road in Wake Forest.

Yes. More than a dozen new bridges and underpasses are planned between Raleigh Union Station and Wake Forest to eliminate at-grade crossings. Other crossings, such as Jones and Hargett streets downtown, will be closed, with traffic re-routed to nearby bridges. A pedestrian bridge is planned at Jones Street, connecting the Glenwood South area with the rest of downtown.

Orthner likens the process to building an interstate highway, which doesn’t have intersections that can slow down traffic and create safety hazards.

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Orthner said NCDOT’s goal and best estimate now is that the new tracks, signals, bridges and stations will be completed by 2030.

“I can tell you that my leadership wants this thing done as fast as possible,” he said. “And we’re working to make sure that we hit all the boxes correctly to get it done.”

Raleigh’s train station is oriented to the N.C. Railroad tracks with a concourse that leads to a double-sided platform where passengers on Amtrak’s Piedmont, Carolinian and Silver Star trains get on and off.

But the station was designed with the S-line in mind, and there’s room to build another concourse that will lead to a new platform on the other side of the building. Trains to or from Wake Forest and points north will use that platform.

“If you look at the ticket window, you go left to the trains today,” Orthner said. “But eventually you’ll be able to go right as well.”

The federal grant is to help NCDOT establish intercity passenger rail service, so for now the state is focusing on planning and building stations in larger communities. This includes Wake Forest and Henderson in Vance County.

But NCDOT is also laying the groundwork for stations in smaller places, such as Norlina, Youngsville and Franklinton. The thinking is that when the line to Richmond is complete, there will be express trains that make few stops and perhaps local trains that serve these smaller communities.

NCDOT is also working with the City of Raleigh on a potential station where the tracks cross Spring Forest Road.

NCDOT and the town are still working on that. Town officials would like to see it built on the site of an old freight depot in the center of town, but NCDOT is still doing the engineering work to determine if it will fit there, Orthner said.

They’ll be diesel, as current Amtrak trains are in North Carolina. Orthner says they’ll likely be built at a factory that Siemens Mobility is building in Lexington and be designed to run on both diesel and electricity. That means the trains will work both in the Southeast and on the electrified tracks of the Northeast Corridor.

“Right now they have to change locomotives in Washington,” Orthner said. “These trains will basically, with the flip of a switch, just keep going.”

Yes. CSX will continue to serve its customers. The line will have two tracks in many places and sometimes three to keep passenger and freight trains separate.

“A major component of this is ensuring that freight continues to be successful on the line,” Orthner said.

NCDOT has longstanding plans to eliminate two railroad crossings in Cary, at Maynard Road and Trinity Road, but hadn’t planned to do either anytime soon. Under its current schedule, the state doesn’t plan to begin building a bridge at Trinity until 2029.

Both crossings are on the S-line, though outside the corridor between Raleigh and Wake Forest that is the primary focus of the federal grant. The grant could allow NCDOT to accelerate those projects, but that’s not clear yet, Orthner said.

NCDOT will continue to seek federal money to help continue building the line north to Virginia, but for now the timing of that work is unclear.

“There’s no goal to stop at Wake Forest,” Orthner said. “We’re definitively working to continue to secure grant funding going north.”

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Apple could start building its new campus in Research Triangle Park as soon as 2026. The development of the East Coast campus is expected to impact the entire Triangle community drastically.

“It’s really going to change the area in that there will be lots of cottage industry and ancillary benefits when Apple comes to town,” said Morrisville Mayor TJ Cawley.

On 281 acres of land in Wake County, Apple plans to build its new hub. Hundreds of pages of newly obtained documents show the extent of Apple’s expansion and new campus.

A traffic study done by engineering firm Kimley-Horn in May indicates construction should start in 2026. The area just north of Little Drive and N.C. 540 Toll, in Research Triangle Park, will soon be transformed.

“Well, initially it goes by fast, right,” said Morrisville Councilmember Steve Rao. “2021, we were, you know, excited about it, Gov. Cooper’s announcement, and then two years go by, you don’t really hear anything and then all of a sudden you hear rumblings.”

Each document filed is one step closer to the campus becoming a reality.

“It’s quite exciting,” Rao said.

Apple made a promise in 2021 when the announcement was first made, to bring 3,000 jobs to the area as part of a $1 billion investment in North Carolina.

The minimum average wage for the jobs is expected to be $187,000.

For all of their new employees, Apple is planning to build about 700,000 square feet of office space. A proposal indicates they want six buildings, plus parking.

Experts believe there will be more than 5,550 “new daily vehicular trips each day.”

CBS 17 asked Mayor Cawley how the town will make sure that doesn’t become a traffic nightmare.

“Well, it has been a traffic nightmare for many years,” Cawley said.

Cawley said commuter traffic is already a problem for the town. He hopes plans for a bridge will help over N.C. 54 at McCrimmon Parkway and Airport Boulevard.

“We’re doing everything we can with intersection improvements and trying to change things a little bit, and up near the campus we are going to do some improvements on Davis Drive for the intersection,” Cawley said.

The engineering firm broke down where they believe the increased traffic will come from, to assist with the traffic study. For example, it is estimated that 20 percent of the traffic will go to and from the east on N.C. 540.

That means the area around the campus will change a lot, too.

The firm has recommended the construction of turn lanes, intersections with egress lanes, and new traffic signals to help control the unprecedented level of cars in the area.

CBS 17 learned from the traffic study that the North Carolina Department of Transportation is also looking at extending Interstate-885 south of N.C. 540 to create a direct connection to Davis Drive, to help divert traffic.

The firm also wrote that Cary town officials have also funded a project to widen O’Kelly Chapel Road, between Green Level Church Road and N.C. 55, to help with traffic flow.

Cawley also hopes a plan to widen N.C. 54 will help. That is a North Carolina Department of Transportation project, but currently, there’s no estimate of when that construction could begin.

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — With the cold weather season in full swing, one of the best ways to warm up with is with a cup of hot chocolate.

Yelp recently released it’s 2023 list of top 50 places in the United States and Canada to get a cup of hot cocoa — whipped cream optional — and a Raleigh chocolatier has made this year’s rankings.

Escazú Chocolates, located at 936 N. Blount St., came in at No. 17 on the list.

According to the business’ Yelp page, the women-owned business has been sorting, roasting and grinding Latin American cacao beans into chocolate since 2008.

Escazú is co-owned and operated by Danielle Centeno and Tiana Young. According to Escazú’s website, Centeno combined her culinary background with her Venezuelan heritage and “curiosity about bean-to-bar chocolate making” to co-found the business. Young began as a worker at the shop who was interested in entrepreneurship, which eventually led to part ownership in the business.

Escazú prides itself in producing “locally made, carefully crafted” chocolate products.

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“We curate cacao beans from Latin America, then process them into dark chocolate bars, confections, ice cream and drinks at our chocolate factory in downtown Raleigh,” their website says. “In the front of our chocolate factory is our retail shop where we provide an immersive chocolate experience. Here you’ll find the broadest selection of our chocolate offerings, as well as goods we’ve sourced from other local and woman-owned makers.”

Escazú is the only North Carolina business to make the list.

Yelp’s list was compiled by looking at businesses in the food and restaurants category with a large concentration of reviews mentioning “hot cocoa” and “hot chocolate.” Yelp then ranked them based on several factors, including the total volume and ratings of reviews mentioning those same two terms.