Stanley Cup more than just a trophy
Wednesday night I watched as the Detroit Red Wings hoisted the Stanley Cup. Now, as a diehard fan and season ticket holder of the Nashville Predators, I certainly have no love for the Red Wings. In fact, I’ve been known to chant my feelings on the Red Wings loudly and often. But there’s something about the aura of the Cup and the respect it demands that draws me into watching the presentation no matter what my feelings are for the team currently possessing it.
No other pro sports league’s trophy can boast the kind of history that accompanies the Stanley Cup. Only in the NHL can the current champions hold the exact same trophy that was lovingly embraced by their own childhood hockey heroes. In every other league, a new trophy is made each year and remains in the possession of the team that won it, but in the NHL there is only one Stanley Cup. Each year, it goes to the champion until a new champion is crowned. It is treated by the players with a reverence that you seldom see from athletes in other sports. Most NHL players go out of their way to not look at it and certainly not to touch it until they win it themselves.
It is also the only trophy in professional sports that has the names of the winning players, coaches, management and club staff etched into it. Once someone is on a Cup-winning team, their name lives on in hockey immortality. This gives the Cup a sense of history that prizes like the Vince Lombardi Trophy just don’t carry with them.
The legend surrounding the Cup has given it a kind of personality of its own. It is the oldest professional sports trophy in North America, dating back to 1892 when the former Governor General of Canada, Lord Stanley of Preston, donated the bowl as the trophy for the best amateur hockey club in Canada. In 1926, the Cup became the prize for the National Hockey League and has, in one form or another, been awarded to the NHL’s champion every year since.
Stanley has a much more active social life than any other piece of sports hardware as well. Each member of the winning team is allowed a day with the Cup to take it anywhere they wish, accompanied by its very own glove-wearing chaperone. This has led to a plethora of stories that many books could be, and have been, written about. The Cup has served as a feeding trough for horses, a toilet for babies and used as the ultimate champagne glass at numerous bars. It has been stranded on the side of the road by a forgetful team who took it out of the trunk while changing a tire, and at one point left at the bottom of Mario Lemieux’s swimming pool.
But for all of its storied history, the Cup is still very much a trophy for the fans as well. Seldom do you see something held in such esteem made so accessible to the general public. I attended the NHL draft when it was held in Nashville a few years back and watched as its white gloved escort carefully and lovingly removed the Stanley Cup from its padded traveling case and placed it gingerly on its own special table, being careful not to sully its freshly polished surface. He then stepped back and opened up the line and watched as, for hours, throngs of fans touched, hugged and kissed the Cup while posing for photos. And those who didn’t touch it were encouraged to do so by officials. For the record, I didn’t need the encouragement and I know the precise location where I got my hands on it. Perhaps it’s this kind of personal connection that so many fans have had the opportunity to have that fosters such strong feelings for an inanimate object.
Hopefully someday soon we will be able to witness the Cup being lifted victoriously by our own Nashville Predators. On an encouraging note, no team came closer to disrupting the Red Wings’ cruise to the Cup than the Preds, having beaten them twice, losing once in overtime and twice due largely to controversial goal calls. Until that day, I will continue to watch the Cup ceremonies no matter who gets their hands on it.