Here are 10 things to know about the Stanley Cup, the light at the end of the Dallas Stars’ tunnel through the NHL playoffs.
Everything you need to know about the historic trophy below.
1. The hardest trophy to win in professional sports
Of the Big 4 — the NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB — the Stanley Cup is colloquially referred to as the hardest trophy to win of them all.
Sports Roundup
Why? A number of reasons. The grind of hockey and the fact that teams have played around 100 games by the time they lift Lord Stanley’s Cup, between 82 regular season games and four best-of-7 playoff series.
It’s also the sport where regular-season results fail to carry over to the playoffs. Seven- and eight-seeds in the NHL playoffs can and frequently do knock off the top-seeded teams in the opening rounds. It was only 13 seasons ago that the LA Kings, the 8-seed in the West that season, won the Stanley Cup over the New Jersey Devils, the 6-seed in the East.
2. Origin
Members of the New York Rangers are posing with the Stanley Cup, which they won by defeating the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-2 in Toronto, on April 13, 1940. Standing in the center is Rangers coach and manager Lester Patrick, in front of him is Frank Caulder, president of the National Hockey League. (AP Photo)(The Associated Press / AP)
The Cup is named after Lord Stanley of Preston, the Governor General of Canada in the late 1800s, who later became a big-time hockey fan. He noted that the champion of Canada’s amateur hockey association didn’t have a trophy, an “outward sign of a championship.” So he bought what was essentially a silver punch bowl and crafted the Stanley Cup. In a time even before pro sports, the Cup was to be awarded every year to the top amateur hockey team in the country.
It’s been the de facto trophy for the NHL since 1926, with an official agreement being reached in 1947.
3. Engraving
As the years went on the Stanley Cup grew, adding its signature rings down below the silver bowl. Those rings are engraved with the names of every player, coach, manager and staffer to be on the Cup-winning team, as is tradition.
An engraving for the Dallas Stars winning the Stanley Cup during the 1998-1999 season on the trophy. Photographed at the Dallas Morning News’ studio in Dallas on Friday, May 19, 2023.(Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer)4. Big Stanley
Due to all those names and the ever-expanding rings, the Stanley Cup is by far the biggest trophy in American pro sports.
The Cup stands at just under three feet tall (35.25 inches) and weighs 34.5 pounds.
If you ask the players, though, it’s light as a feather when you’re lifting it over your head.
5. Stars’ turn
The Stars lifted the Cup for the first and only time in 1999, when they beat the Buffalo Sabres in triple-overtime to secure the franchise’s first championship.
File photo: The Stars’ Brett Hull celebrates with the Stanley Cup after the third OT of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals at Marine Midland Arena in Buffalo on June 19, 1999.(michael mulvey)
File photo: The Dallas Stars celebrate with the Stanley Cup after the third OT of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals at Marine Midland Arena in Buffalo on June 19, 1999.(michael mulvey)6. The pass-off
One of the most iconic parts of winning the Stanley Cup is the one-by-one passing of the Cup from player to player during the postgame celebration of the team’s win. Each player, starting with the captain of the team (in the ‘99 Stars’ case, that was Derrian Hatcher), gets a minute or so to skate the Cup and soak in the moment.
They then typically pass it off to the team’s best or second-best player, or otherwise someone that was pivotal along the road to the Cup. For the ‘99 Stars, perhaps predictably, Hatcher passed it off to Mike Modano.
File photo: Mike Modano hoists the Stanley Cup after the Stars beat the Sabres in the 3rd OT of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals at Marine Midland Arena in Buffalo on June 12, 1999.(Michael Mulvey)7. The caretaker
Arguably the world’s most well-traveled trophy, the Stanley Cup has seen it all. Each member of the winning team gets time during the summer to take the Cup off on their own to celebrate.
But alongside the Cup is one of four men who travel with it throughout the year, with the responsibility of keeping it in one piece. Appropriately, they’re called keepers of the Cup. They’re the guys you see wearing the white gloves and passing it off to the victorious players.
The Dallas Morning News spoke to one of the Cup’s keepers in May of 2023. Howie Borrow took The News through a day in the life and, mostly, explained how he keeps the historically renowned Cup from being damaged, lost or otherwise destroyed by rambunctious and oftentimes intoxicated hockey players.
Related:Caviar, newborns and the Stars’ dent: Stanley Cup keeper talks traveling with the Cup
Howie Borrow, keeper of the Stanley Cup, poses for a photo with the trophy at the Dallas Morning News’ studio in Dallas on Friday, May 19, 2023.(Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer)8. No touching!
There’s a reason the keepers wear the white gloves. It’s not just for cleanliness.
There’s a strong superstition in the hockey universe that you shouldn’t touch the Stanley Cup unless you’ve won it. This is especially believed among players, who will often outright refuse to touch, take pictures with or even be in the same room as the Cup before they’ve rightfully won it.
For some, including the Stars’ Wyatt Johnston, it goes so far as to not even touching a toy replica version of the Cup.
9. The ‘99 Stars’ wild time with Lord Stanley
The legend has been blurred a bit, perhaps due to time, perhaps because the memories of that night were rather fuzzy to begin with. But a deeply rooted piece of Dallas Stars lore is that, at some point during the Summer of ‘99 as the team celebrated with the Stanley Cup, it was thrown off a roof into a pool at a particularly raucous party and ended up being dented.
Was it grizzled veteran Guy Carbonneau? He might be the prime suspect, but he denied the claims in 2022. If it was truly him that chunked the Cup off the roof, he told D Magazine, he would proudly admit it.
Related:25 years later: Remembering Stars’ Stanley Cup win, and the wild parties that followed
Regardless, it wasn’t the end of the world. The Cup had seen worse.
“It’s been dropped a few times. Accidents happen,” Cup keeper Borrow told The News. “Luckily, the silver is pliable. The metal shifts and bends, and it’s repaired fairly easily. For 130 years old, it’s in pretty good shape.”
10. ‘You name it, it’s been in the bowl.’
Borrow also shared tales of all the wild things he’s seen players eat, drink or otherwise out of the Cup.
“I’ve seen anything from pierogies to poutine, chicken wings, cereal, ice cream, Jell-O and caviar — you name it, it’s been in the bowl.”
Odds-on favorite for most popular Cup delicacy, though? Can’t go wrong with champagne.
ORG XMIT: S11A11371 6/19/99 – Stanley Cup Finals, Game 6 – The Stars’ Guy Carbonneau takes a drink of champagne from the STanley Cup in the locker room after the third OT of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals at Marine Midland Arena in Buffalo.(DELUCA, Louis – Digital Image)
Twitter: @dmn_stars
Oilers forward Zach Hyman likely to miss rest of playoffs after injury vs. Stars
Hyman took a hit from Dallas’ Mason Marchment early in Game 4 which knocked him out of the contest.
Public Editor: Disappointed by Stars coverage
Reader concerned about lack of front-page hockey stories.
Stars not tough enough, nor smart enough, to rally from 3-1 deficit against Oilers
Only someone with an eye for a long shot would bet against a Florida-Edmonton rematch in the Stanley Cup Final.
Find more Stars coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.