http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
In its first three days with the Penguins, Lord Stanley's Cup has been suspended outside a second-story window on the South Side, taken a dip in Mario Lemieux's swimming pool and served as the grand marshal of a Downtown parade before hundreds of thousands of cheering fans.
PITTSBURGH - JUNE 15: Head coach Dan Bylsma of the Pittsburgh Penguins holds aloft the Stanley Cup for the crowd during Stanley Cup Champion Victory Parade on June 15, 2009 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)The adventures are just about to begin for that crazy Cup.
Before hockey's Holy Grail embarks on its 100 days of celebration, it will head Wednesday to Las Vegas for the NHL Awards Show, where Penguins center Evgeni Malkin is a finalist for the Hart Trophy and captain Sidney Crosby for the Mark Messier NHL Leadership Award.
"To see the Cup among that many people and the attention it draws, no matter if you're a hockey fan or not, there's just something about it that's so special," Crosby said of the reaction to bringing the Cup back. "That's the great thing about it that I don't think you see in any other sport, where guys get to spend so much time with the trophy they worked so hard to get."
Of North America's four major professional sports leagues, only the NHL awards a trophy that has the names of every member of a championship team engraved on it. Where the others re-create replicas of their trophy and award them annually to the champions, there is only one Stanley Cup. And that changes everything.
The NFL awards the football-shaped Lombardi Trophy to its champion. Major League Baseball gives its champion the World Series Trophy, featuring pennants of every team. In 1978, the NBA changed its hardware, with a basketball about to enter the net, from the Walter A. Brown Trophy to the Larry O'Brien Trophy after its former NBA commissioner and past U.S. Postmaster General. The league also started a Legends Tour to make it more accessible — and recognizable — to basketball fans.
None of them have the cache of the Cup.
The 35-pound, 34 1/2-inch cylinder is a magnet for everyone from movie stars — it stands taller than actor Verne Troyer, famous for his role as "Mini-Me" in the Austin Powers series — to sporting superstars. The Cup spent Sunday at PNC Park, took at trip to Detroit's Comerica Park last year and has appeared in ballparks and stadiums in nearly every city it has visited.
"I've had the Stanley Cup lined up with the World Series trophy with the Red Sox, and the Stanley Cup had a bigger crowd in Boston. The same thing with Steelers and Lombardi Trophy," said Mike Bolt, one of the four men who serve as Keeper of the Cup for the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. "The players say, 'You get to have your name on it, take it home, eat out of it and drink out of it.' It's funny. I've heard ballplayers' say that, in other sports, they play for a ring. In hockey, they play for the Cup.
"That's why it's the most famous trophy in professional sports."
Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby and goalie Marc-Andre Fleury ride with the Stanley Cup along the victory parade route in Pittsburgh, Monday, June 15, 2009. The Penguins defeated the Detroit Red Wings, 2-1 in game 7, Saturday in Detroit. (AP)One with a reputation for skinny dipping.
The Cup has twice ended up at the bottom of the pool at the home of Lemieux, who the Penguins to back-to-back championships in 1991-92 as a Hall of Fame center and is now the club's majority co-owner. The first time came in '91, when Phil Bourque got the party started by tossing it into the water, causing it to get water-logged and tarnished (which is why the Hockey Hall of Fame created the position of Keeper of the Cup).
Not to be outdone...
"We did that already," said Penguins right wing Bill Guerin, noting that he was one of the players who rescued the Stanley Cup Sunday night. "A couple of us did ... a couple of times."
What makes the Cup even more famous is its tradition of allowing every player from its champions to spend a day of his choosing with it, one that has seen it straddle the Siberian border of Europe and Asia (by Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk) and be flown by helicopter to the top of Bull Mountain in Cranbrook, B.C. (by Anaheim's Scott and Rob Niedermayer) in years past.
When Penguins left wing Chris Kunitz won the Cup with the Anaheim Ducks in 2007, he split the first half of the day at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Mich., before boarding a private plane to his native Regina, Saskatchewan. When Penguins right wing Craig Adams won the Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes in '06, he visited a children's hospital in Calgary, Alberta. When Penguins left wing Ruslan Fedotenko won the Cup with the Tampa Bay Lightning in '04, he returned for the first time in six years to Kiev, Ukraine, where 8,000 people lined its main street and the party was broadcast live nationwide.
The Penguins players are still planning their day with the Cup, working with Hockey Hall of Fame vice president/collections curator Phil Pritchard to plan a geographically feasible schedule that will allow each player and member of the front-office management their 24 hours with the prized possession.
"I have no idea what my plans are for the summer, but I've got lots of ideas for the Cup," said Crosby, who plans to take the Cup to his hometown of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. "This is something we've all dreamed about, had a long time to think about. I'll bring it home and, hopefully, share it with a lot of people back there and spend as much time as I can with it.
"You look back to all the people that helped you to get to this point, and they all had a hand in it, whether it's midget hockey coach or Junior. In a way, it's almost like a way to say thanks to have them see you with the Cup and achieve your goal. They can feel part of it, too."
PITTSBURGH - JUNE 15: Sidney Crosby(notes) #87 of the Pittsburgh Penguins holds the Stanley Cup as Maxime Talbot #25 of the Penguins sprays the crowd during Stanley Cup Champion Victory Parade on June 15, 2009 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)Penguins forward Maxime Talbot will get to live out his dreams twice. Not only did he score both goals in the 2-1 Game 7 victory over Detroit last Friday, but he will get to return to his native Montreal with the Cup.
"That's the day that you dream of," Talbot said. "I'm going to go back home to Montreal and do something with charity to raise a little money for my foundation and share it with the city where I grew up with hockey and my family, friends and old coaches — everyone who helped me get here.
"I can't wait for that day."
Twice as nice
A look at the 11 times that cities with teams in the four major sports (NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL) won multiple championships in the same calendar year:
Year: City — Teams
2009: Pittsburgh — Steelers, Penguins
2004: Boston — Red Sox, Patriots
1988: Los Angeles — Dodgers, Lakers
1979: Pittsburgh — Steelers, Pirates
1969: New York — Jets, Mets
1956: New York — Yankees, Giants (NFL)
1952: Detroit — Lions, Red Wings
1938: New York — Yankees, Giants (NFL)
1935: Detroit — Tigers, Lions
1933: New York — Giants (MLB), Rangers
1928: New York — Yankees, Rangers
Scott Niedermayer took the Stanley Cup to the top of Fisher Peak near Cranbrook, not Bull Mountain.
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