Let’s savor the Stanley Cup as the only living trophy in sports – Chicago Tribune
When the Warriors have a parade Friday around the Bay Area as NBA champions, their fans will fawn over Steph Curry and elbow each other out of the way to try to catch a glimpse of him.
When the Patriots won the Super Bowl, fans clamoring to get a photo of quarterback Tom Brady made the front pages of papers. This year’s World Series champion, like in years past, will be dominated by the winning team’s MVP.
Understandably, superstars get the glory.
So, apologies must go to Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane in the exception that is the NHL. In hockey, there is no bigger star than Lord Stanley.
My Facebook feed, much like yours I would bet, has friends’ snapshots of themselves posing with the Stanley Cup. Players might not be in the shot, or they might be blurry or in the background.
Doesn’t matter. The objective is always to get a picture with the most famous sports trophy in the world.
Sure, it’s cool for fans to meet a player. But when the Cup makes solo appearances, there’s a line all the way to Gary, Ind., to greet the silver trophy. I would venture to guess it would be a tossup for a Blackhawks fan who had a chance either to caress the Cup or shake hands with Toews.
Is there anything else as old, recycled and beloved as the Cup?
Is it because of the antics involved in players’ celebrations with it? Is it the idea that a team only has temporary custody of the trophy? Is it the history with its origins dating back to 1892?
The Stanley Cup holds such a prominent role in hockey there is etiquette about who can touch it and when, about who can hoist it, about which order players are to pass it off to one another.
The Lombardi Trophy of the NFL, the Larry O’Brien Trophy of the NBA and the Commissioner’s Trophy of Major League Baseball are all beautifully designed and prestigious to earn in their own right.
But a new one is designed each year, unlike the NHL where winners pass the same one along, albeit with additions, year by year. Often, CEOs and team presidents — men in suits — are among the first to hold those trophies, unlike in the NHL where sweaty players hoist it above their heads and skate around the ice with it.
In other sports, the trophy goes behind a glass case. The Stanley Cup takes an adventurous, carefree global journey each year that most of us could only dream about.
So should those sports attempt to adopt the NHL’s customs of sharing a trophy and giving it a life of its own? Simply put, no.
Today, the marketing behind sports is already so phony and transparent with the omnipresence of logos, corporate naming of arenas and product placement of sports drinks at news conferences, sports fans saver an old and untouched tradition.
The Stanley Cup is an original. Keep it that way and let it remain the envy of the other trophies.
Twitter @sryantribune
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