Current Champion: Vegas Golden Knights (2023)
Most Titles:Montreal Canadiens (24 Times)
Introduction
The Stanley Cup considered as the oldest existing trophy to be awarded to a professional sports franchise in North America, and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) considers it to be one of the "most important championships available to the sport". The trophy was commissioned in 1892 as the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup and is named after Lord Stanley of Preston, the Governor General of Canada, who donated it as an award to Canada's top-ranking amateur ice hockey club. The entire Stanley family supported the sport, the sons and daughters all playing and promoting the game. The first Cup was awarded in 1893 to Montreal Hockey Club, and winners from 1893 to 1914 were determined by challenge games and league play. Professional teams first became eligible to challenge for the Stanley Cup in 1906. In 1915, the National Hockey Association (NHA) and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA), the two main professional ice hockey organizations, reached a gentlemen's agreement in which their respective champions would face each other annually for the Stanley Cup. It was established as the de facto championship trophy of the NHL in 1926 and then the de jure NHL championship prize in 1947.
There are actually three Stanley Cups: the original bowl of the "Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup", the authenticated "Presentation Cup", and the spelling-corrected "Permanent Cup" on display at the Hockey Hall of Fame whenever the Presentation Cup is not available. While the NHL has maintained control over the trophy itself and its associated trademarks, the NHL does not actually own the trophy but uses it by agreement with the two Canadian trustees of the cup. The NHL has registered trademarks associated with the name and likeness of the Stanley Cup, although there has been dispute as to whether the league has the right to own trademarks associated with a trophy that it does not own.
The original bowl was made of silver and is 18.5 centimetres (7.28 inches) high and 29 centimetres (11.42 inches) wide. The current Stanley Cup is topped with a copy of the original bowl, made of a silver and nickel alloy. It has a height of 89.54 centimetres (35.25 inches) and weighs 15.5 kilograms (34.5 lb). Like the Grey Cup, and unlike the trophies awarded by the other major professional sports leagues of North America, a new Stanley Cup is not made every year. The winners originally kept it until a new champion was crowned, but winning teams currently get the Stanley Cup during the summer and a limited number of days during the season. Every year since 1924, a select portion of the winning players, coaches, management, and club staff names are engraved on its bands, which is unusual among trophies. However, there is not enough room to include all the players and non-players, so some names must be omitted. Between 1924 and 1940, a new band was added almost every year that the trophy was awarded, earning the nickname "Stovepipe Cup" due to the unnatural height of all the bands. In 1947, the cup size was reduced, but not all the large rings were the same size. In 1958, the modern one-piece Cup was designed with a five-band barrel which could contain 13 winning teams per band. Every 13 years when the bottom band of the Stanley Cup is filled with names of champions, the top band is removed and retired to be displayed in the vault of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. The four bands below it are slid up one place and a new blank band added to the bottom. The first winning team engraved on the newest band is thus, in theory (see Engraving section below), displayed on the trophy for the next 65 years. It has been referred to as The Cup, Lord Stanley's Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug. The Stanley Cup is surrounded by numerous legends and traditions, the oldest of which is the winning team drinking champagne from it.
Montreal Canadiens is successful Franchise in NHL history with winning the Cup 24 Times.
NHL Takes Over
The WHL folded in 1926 and was quickly replaced by the Prairie Hockey League. However, in the meantime, the NHL (which had entered the U.S. only two years before) bought up the contracts of most of the WHL's players and largely used them to stock the rosters of three new U.S. teams. In what would turn out to be its most significant expansion of its pre-Original Six era, the Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Cougars (now called the Detroit Red Wings), and New York Rangers joined the NHL. With the NHL now firmly established in the largest markets of the Northeastern United States, and with the Western teams having been stripped of their best players, the PHL was deemed to be a "minor league" unworthy of challenging the NHL for hockey supremacy.
The PHL lasted only two seasons. Over the next two decades other leagues and clubs occasionally issued challenges, but none were accepted by the Cup's trustees. Since 1926, no non-NHL team has played for the Cup, leading it to become the de facto championship trophy of the NHL. In addition, with no major professional hockey league left to challenge it, the NHL began calling its league champions the world champions, notwithstanding the lack of any interleague championship. In doing so, the NHL copied a policy that had been adopted by the then still-fledgling National Football League from its start in 1920 (and which the National Basketball Association also asserted upon its founding in 1946).
Tradition
There are many traditions associated with the Stanley Cup. One of the oldest, started by the 1896 Winnipeg Victorias, dictates that the winning team drink champagne from the top bowl after their victory. The Cup is also traditionally presented on the ice by the NHL commissioner to the captain of the winning team after the series-winning game; each member of the victorious club carries the trophy around the rink. However, this has not always been the case; prior to the 1930s, the Cup was not awarded immediately after the victory. The first time that the Cup was awarded on the ice may have been to the 1932 Toronto Maple Leafs, but the practice did not become a tradition until the 1950s. Ted Lindsay of the 1950 Cup champion Detroit Red Wings became the first captain, upon receiving the Cup, to hoist it overhead and skate around the rink. According to Lindsay, he did so to allow the fans to have a better view of the Cup. Since then, it has been a tradition for each member of the winning team, beginning with the captain, to take a lap around the ice with the trophy hoisted above his head.
The tradition of the captain first hoisting the Cup has been "breached" a few times. In 1987 after the Edmonton Oilers defeated the Philadelphia Flyers, Wayne Gretzky handed the Cup to Steve Smith, a year after Smith made a costly gaffe that cost the Oilers the chance of making their fourth consecutive Stanley Cup Finals appearance. The second occurred in 1993 after the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Los Angeles Kings, Guy Carbonneau handed the Cup to Denis Savard, as Savard had been the player that many fans had urged the Canadiens to draft back in 1980. The third was in 2001 involving Joe Sakic and Ray Bourque when the Colorado Avalanche won the Cup in 2001, as the seventh and deciding game of the finals was the last of Bourque's 22-year NHL career, having never been on a cup-winning team until that time (until being traded to the Avalanche on March 6, 2000, Bourque had played only for the Boston Bruins). When Sakic received the trophy, he did not hoist it, but instead immediately handed it to Bourque; Sakic then became the second player on the team to hoist the trophy.
The Stanley Cup championship team is allotted 100 days during off-season to pass around the Cup. It is always accompanied by at least one representative from the Hockey Hall of Fame. Although many players have unofficially spent a day in personal possession of the Cup, in 1995 the New Jersey Devils started a tradition wherein each member of the Cup-winning team is allowed to retain the Cup for a day.[ After the 1994–95 season, the NHL made it mandatory that one of the official Cup handlers always be present while the Cup is passed around among players in the off-season. This may have been related to Eddie Olczyk's handling of the Cup after the New York Rangers' 1994 win - Olczyk brought the Cup to the Belmont Stakes, where Kentucky Derby winner Go for Gin ate out of it.[83]
On August 22, 2001, Colorado Avalanche Director of Finance Mark Waggoner carried the Stanley Cup to the summit of Mount Elbert, the highest point of Colorado.
Victors of the Cup have used it to baptize their children. Three players (the New York Islanders' Clark Gillies, the Anaheim Ducks' Sean O'Donnell, and the Pittsburgh Penguins' Nick Bonino) even allowed their dogs to eat out of the Cup.
