Christopher Hanewinckel/USA Today Sports
The Stanley Cup is the oldest professional sports trophy in North America and is arguably the greatest trophy in all of sports. The cup is awarded annually to the NHL (National Hockey League) playoff champion. What makes the Stanley Cup so special is that, unlike championship trophies in other major sports, a new Cup is not made each year. The winners originally kept it until a new champion was crowned, but now the winning teams get the Stanley Cup during the summer and a limited number of days during the season before its returned to the Hockey Hall Of Fame in Toronto. The Stanley Cup has a long and complicated history and in this article we're going to delve right into it.
It all began when Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley was appointed by Queen Victoria as The Governor General of the Dominion of Canada on June 11, 1888. After he arrived in Canada, he watched Ice hockey for the first time and quickly became obsessed with the Sport. He became the highest ranked hockey fan and his entire family became enthusiastic about ice hockey. His sons and daughters even decided to take up the game themselves. During that time, however, organized ice hockey in Canada was still in its infancy and only Montreal and Ottawa had anything resembling leagues. Two of Lord Stanley's sons, Arthur and Algernon, persuaded their father to donate a trophy to be 'an outward and visible sign of an ice hockey championship'.
As a result, 'The Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup' was donated in 1892 by Lord Stanley and was to be awarded to the best ice hockey team in Canada each year. The cup was bowl shaped, made in Sheffield, England, and was purchased for ten guineas, (About 50 USD at the time). The words 'Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup' was engraved on one side of the outside rim, and 'From Stanley of Preston' was engraved on the other side. However, the Cup became more widely known for its donor and was referred to as the 'Stanley Cup'.
Source: Getty Images
The first ever team to be awarded the Stanley Cup was the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association in 1893 after they won the Amateur Hockey Association. Stanley had intended for the cup to be presented to the winner of a challenge series, or tournament, so in 1893 it was given to the Montreal AAA team upon their victory over the Ottawa Generals in the championship round of a tournament specifically created to award the Cup. The names of the winning teams from each year were engraved on the base ring until it became full in 1903, and then until 1907 the names were engraved on the bowl itself. In 1907, the Montreal Wanderers became the first team to engrave the names of individual team members on the cup. Since 1926, when the Stanley Cup officially became the winners trophy for the NHL, the practice of engraving names of players, coaches, and other important team officials has been an important Stanley Cup tradition that has been followed to this day.
Anyways, the addition of these names took up lots of space and the cup had to be elongated to make everything fit. A new base ring was attached to the bottom by the Ottawa Senators in 1909 and many new rings were added in subsequent years as the cup kept growing. By the 1940s, the cup became so tall that it was nicknamed the 'Stovepipe Cup' because of its resemblance to the exhaust pipe of a stove. This was a rather embarrassing nickname for such a coveted trophy so it was redesigned in 1948 as a two-piece trophy with a removable bowl and collar. However, this new design was short lived as just 10 years later, in 1958, the modern one-piece Cup design was introduced and the old barrel was replaced with a five-band barrel, each of which could contain 13 years of Stanley Cup Champions. When the bands were all filled, the top band of the large barrel could be removed and preserved in the Hockey Hall of Fame, while a new blank band could be added to the bottom so the Stanley Cup would not grow further in size.
Source: Hockey Gods
What many people do not know is that there are actually three versions of the Stanley Cup- The Presentation Cup, The Permanent Cup, and (of course) the original Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup that was donated by Lord Stanley all those years ago. The Presentation Cup is the one that is handed to the NHL Champions each year and is carried around the ice during the celebrations. It is often taken on the road for promotions, displays and is also given to each player of the championship team for 1-day in the summer so they can celebrate with the cup (a tradition unique to hockey). The spelling-corrected Permanent Cup is an exact replica of the Presentation Cup that remains on display in The Hockey Hall of Fame throughout the year. The original 1892 Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup, is also displayed in the Vault Room at the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Caption: The three versions of the Stanley Cup
As mentioned earlier, The Stanley Cup is loaned out to each player and staff member of the Championship team for 1-day over the summer and this has resulted in some interesting (and maybe even disgusting) incidents with the cup. After winning the 1994 Stanley Cup, members of the New York Rangers took the Cup to Belmont Park, filled it with oats, and fed Kentucky Derby (horse race) winner Go for Gin out of the Cup.
Following Detroit Red Wing's victory in 2008, Kris Draper seated his new born daughter in the cup, only to find that she pooped in it. Later that day, Draper cleaned it and (you guessed it) drank out of it. In 2003, New Jersey Devils Goalie Martin Brodeur ate popcorn out of the cup, and three years later, in 2006, Carolina Hurricanes Goalie Cam Ward drank cereal out of it. The Cup was even taken to the Hollywood sign and on a ride at Universal Studios Hollywood by Luc Robitaille following the Red Wings' win in 2002. Its fair to say that the Stanley Cup has gone on some pretty exclusive adventures that no other Professional Sports Trophy ever will.
- By Sriram Chidambaram
Comments