You might be wondering why the Infographics Show is doing a show about a trophy, a hunk
of metal, rather than, say, a video about the sport itself or perhaps a show on how
incredibly violent ice hockey was in the past, if not still today.
But we aren’t talking about just any trophy here, the Stanley Cup has a story that could
be a movie.
Not only is it the oldest trophy in professional sports, but it’s been places you wouldn’t
have imagined.
It’s been some pretty ordinary places too though, including in the possession of every
member of every team that has won it.
If you know your hockey, that means Montreal Canadiens team members have had it the most
throughout history.
We’ll give you a rundown of the cup’s history first, and then get into the weird
and wonderful stuff.
So, you might not be surprised to find out that it was an English bloke that was behind
the Stanley Cup, and yes, his name was Stanley.
His title was Lord Stanley of Preston.
When he wasn’t lording over things in the industrial north of England, he liked nothing
more than to hop on a boat and go to the land of frozen lakes and maple leaf syrup.
In 1888 he became the governor general of Canada and it’s said that one of the things
he liked about Canada was some strange sport where men skated around on ice and bashed
each other up while trying to slot a puck into some nets.
Hockey back then was still up and coming, mainly played in the government town of Ottawa
where people skated to work in winter and in the larger city of Montreal.
It was written in a newspaper that after old Stanley caught a game in Montreal he “expressed
his great delight with the game of hockey and the expertise of the players.”
Soon his sons had formed their own team in Ottawa, but Stanley said something was missing.
That was a tournament for all the teams to play and a set of rules.
“I have for some time been thinking that it would be a good thing if there were a challenge
cup which should be held from year to year by the champion hockey team in the Dominion
of Canada,” said Stan.
We probably don’t have to tell you that back then even though Canada was a self-governing
entity, it was still rather British when it wasn’t being particularly French.
It was so British that the cup, or rather a bowl when it was first created, was made
in England from that famous Sheffield steel.
It cost ten guineas, which is around 50 bucks, and that equals around $1,357 in today’s
cash.
On the cup it read, “Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup” and on the other side it said, “From
Stanley of Preston.”
Who would have thought that Preston, a place where most people probably couldn’t name
more than one famous hockey player, would have such a deep connection with ice hockey.
Anyway, there were a few rules, such as each team had to give the cup back to the next
winning team and they could engrave their name on one of the rings.
It would never be the property of any team and teams had to promise to keep the cup in
good condition.
Hmm, we might soon discover that this last rule hasn’t always been kept.
The first winner was the Montreal Hockey Club who beat the Ottawa Hockey Club 3-1 in 1894
in a thriller that saw a bunch of fine gentlemen with handlebar mustaches shake hands politely
after the game.
The trophy passed hands many times, and probably the biggest change was in 1926 when the National
Hockey League took control of the competition.
At this time dear old Stan had given up the ghost and hockey had become a big deal south
of the border.
Two years later and it was in American hands for the first time when the New York Rangers
beat the Montreal Maroons.
The cup would stay mainly in Canada for years to come, but then in the 1980s American teams
started doing well and then even better in the 90s.
That original bowl is now in a vault in Toronto where you can find the Hockey Hall of Fame,
and there have been two other cups since.
As we said, the Montreal Canadians have won it the most times.
They took it 23 times in total, with the Toronto Maple Leafs winning it 13 times and the Detroit
Red Wings 11 times.
Right, so besides it being very old and special, what else is there to say about this cup.
Well, the answer is a long one as you’d expect from a cup that has been in the hands
of many, many hockey players.
We’ll start with the past and the fact one of the cups was nearly lost forever when in
1924 the careless Montreal Canadians left it at the side of a road and took off.
Thankfully someone must have said something like, “I think we might have lost the cup,
‘ey.”
Or perhaps more along the lines, “Je pense que nous avons peut-être perdu la coupe,
‘ey.”
Ok, we don’t speak French very well and had to use Google translate there, so nous
sommes désolés French and French Canadian people if we got that wrong.
It’s a good job in fact that the cup is made of tough stuff, because on more than
one occasion it’s been treated badly.
You could say for many years it’s been in an abusive relationship.
We might recall the time the New York Rangers had to pee on it because they’d started
a fire they couldn’t put out.
That was in 1940 and it wouldn’t be until 1994 that the rangers would win the cup again.
The team was so overjoyed that year that they took the cup out for a few nights, and for
a while it stood in an East Side strip club.
“I'm not sure that they really understood what it meant the way a Ranger fan would,”
the owner of the club said about his dancing employees, “but they were playing along,
because they were feeding off the frenzy of the crowd.”
Apparently the strippers would bring it on stage and do their routine around it.
Players also drank out of it and it visited other bars around New York.
While with the Rangers it’s also said the cup fell out of the trunk of a car, but perhaps
the best thing the players did was fill it with oats and give it to a horse so it would
put its head in it and they could take a photo.
Apparently fans were very upset about this as many of them had queued for hours to get
a picture with the cup.
A New York Post headline as a result went, "Another Fine Mess, Stanley: Battered Cup
Used to Feed the Derby Champ, Then Crowd Is Upset.”
Some players just liked to get it out in public.
They did this because the girls loved seeing it hanging down in front of a big, burly hulk
of a man.
Vice magazine interviewed one such player that loved getting it out for the women, and
he said, "I was still single at the time, and that was the biggest chick magnet you
could find.”
But all this showing girls your trophy and taking it to strip clubs didn’t go down
well with some people and they thought it was an act of indecency.
“The amount of disrespect shown is mind-boggling,” said the son of the guy that had made the
cup.
“My father must be turning in his grave.”
It was very beat up, so he had a point.
One of the Rangers even admitted that, saying, “It's safe to say we ruined it for every
other team moving forward.
They weren't too pleased with us by the end of the summer.
It wasn't in great shape, put it that way.”
Still, it was good news for the Rangers, who thought they had been cursed to never win
the cup again after it’s said they desecrated Stanley’s legacy in 1940 by burning the
mortgage of Madison Square Garden in it.
But before any of you Canadians get all high and mighty about how those reckless Americans
have disrespected the great hunk of metal, let us not forget that in 1962 the Toronto
Maple Leafs decided it might be a good idea to throw the thing on a bonfire like the Brits
burn effigies of the pyromaniac Guy Fawkes.
They were apparently rather drunk at the time.
In 1905 players in Ottawa tried to drop kick it across the Rideau Canal.
20 years later the two kids of a manager saw it in their basement and thought they’d
put their names on it, so they did the inscriptions with a rusty nail.
In 1961 a Canadian wasn’t happy about the cup being won by an American team, so he did
the reasonable thing and stole it.
He got caught and said to the judge, “Your Honor, I was simply bringing the Cup back
to Montreal where it belongs.”
Too right brother, who wouldn’t have done that…Everything in its rightful place, eh.
But the cup ended up back in Canada the year after when the Toronto Maple Leafs won it
again.
That was a good year, too, because perhaps for the first time it was filled with pee.
Yep, that happened when a player put his son in it so he could take a cute photo, but the
kid just couldn’t hold it all in and let one go inside.
Years later another player put his baby girl in it and she really let one go, trumping
the incontinent Toronto boy by dumping a stinking number two in the cup.
We hope it was cleaned after, because lots of players have admitted to trying to sleep
in the thing.
Some have filled it with dog food and let their canine friends eat out of it, while
other players have tried to see if it floats, which it certainly doesn’t as the tests
confirmed.
Hmm, maybe it is witch, because many players have said it was cursed.
Apparently if you touch it before winning it your team will not win that year, and that
has actually been confirmed, too.
It’s been thrown down stairs, fallen off balconies, been a baptism bath, fallen off
many tables, and has even been tested for germs.
In 2010 it was discovered that it had on it a fair bit of E. coli, but we aren’t going
to blame the pooping Canadian for that.
It has certainly been around, too, having hitchhiked once when a player’s car broke
down.
But in terms of wider travel, the cup has been all around the world.
When Canadians and Americans were fighting in Afghanistan in 2007 it went over there.
Apparently nothing boosts moral like a sports trophy, and it actually did two tours of Afghanistan.
It survived its second tour and then went on to star in a gay pride festival in Chicago.
It’s also been all around Europe, and in 2006 even made it back to Stanley’s old
stomping ground of London.
It’s done a fair bit of travelling around Finland, Sweden, Ukraine, Russia, Slovenia
and Slovakia.
When it goes stateside, which happens a lot lately, it also gets to visit the White House.
Presidents Trump, Obama, both Bushes and Reagan all had it for a while as an ornament.
But those that take care of this cup when it’s not travelling around or being used
as a toilet or dog bowl have asked players to treat the thing with more respect.
They seem to think Stanley of Preston would be spinning in his grave if he knew his creation
had graced stages in the Big Apple where lascivious men lech over bronze girls with fake mammary
glands while slipping 10 bucks into their waistbands.
“We’re trying to preserve the history of the Stanley Cup,” said one caretaker.
Well, aint history inclusive?
Perhaps those adventures the cup has been on are its history.
What do you think?
Should players be more respectful to this thing?
Tell us in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video YOU vs WWE Wrestler - Could You Defeat Him
or Her.
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See you next time.