Lord Stanley's Mug

I thought this was the year for Montreal. I thought wrong. The Detroit Red Wings have won the most Stanley Cup championships (11) of any National Hockey League franchise based in the United States, and are third overall in total championships, behind the Montreal Canadiens (24) and Toronto Maple Leafs (13). So if it can't be Montreal or Toronto, I suppose I can settle for one of the Original Six, be it Detroit or Boston. They're mostly Canadian players anyways, and Detroit being "Hockeytown" and the team of Gordie Howe, I can cope to a certain extent with the affectionate despair of losing.

The Stanley Cup is the oldest professional sports trophy in North America. Originally inscribed the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup, the trophy was donated by former Governor General of Canada Lord Stanley of Preston in 1892 as an award for Canada's top-ranking amateur ice hockey club.

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Hockey without the Queen

I have an intense dislike for the new modern hockey arenas slowly sprouting up all across Canada. And this is why:

When the last Ontario Hockey League game is played at the Memorial Centre, those in attendance will have to give a royal wave goodbye to the portrait of the Queen, which won't move to the new Kingston Regional Sports and Entertainment Centre.

The portrait of Queen Elizabeth II will remain inside the Memorial Centre and loom regally over the ice surface. The building won't close and the Queen will stay with it.

In the new facility, the city has plans for plaques along the main concourse to recognize all those who donated to the facility.

There will also be plaques near the donor's wall to commemorate the $4-million provincial contribution to the building and city council members who took an active role in the project.

The sports hall of fame will have plaques of its inductees, but the layout and look of the wall won't be the same as in the Memorial Centre.

"That's about it as far as plaques and portraits," said project manager Lanie Hurdle.

When standing to sing the national anthem, a regular occurrence before sporting events, those in attendance will be able to face the Canadian flag, but no longer the Queen.

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Lord Stanley's Cup

Hockey, or what foreigners call "Ice Hockey", is to Canada what baseball is to America, and cricket is to England. Though other nations play it, and play it well, it is our game. We understand it better than anyone else because we invented it, we mastered it, we raised it to a national art form. We unite over it. The sport has an almost religious significance to Canadians.

Emblematic of this religion is the glorious – nay – the mystical Stanley Cup, commonly referred to as simply "The Cup", "The Holy Grail", or "Lord Stanley’s Mug." In 1892 Governor General Lord Stanley of Preston, a hockey fan, donated this cup (see below), named in his honour, to be awarded to the "champion hockey team in the Dominion of Canada".

Today, the Stanley Cup is the oldest professional sports trophy in North America, and is awarded each year to the top hockey franchise in the National Hockey League (Only six of the thirty NHL franchises are based in Canada, but Canadian players outnumber Americans in the league by a ratio of almost four to one). There is only one official Stanley Cup; it is the only trophy in professional sports that has the names of the winning players, coaches, management, and club staff - now an unbroken annual tradition - engraved upon its chalice as well as its rings and base. Thus its ever growing size and stature, slowly manifesting itself into the statuesque magnificence it represents today.

I will have more on my Crown and Hockey series in the posts to come.

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