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The Real Story of How the Wings Broke the Cup
by Alanah McGinley on 06/17/08 at 12:25 PM ET
Comments (18)
From James Duthie at The Good, The Bad and The Duthie,
Here’s what happened: Chris Chelios was atop the bar, Coyote Ugly style, Cup in hand, with the packed crowd cheering madly. At some point there was an attempted handoff to Brett Lebda. Whether it was the chaos of the crowd, or the…umm…content of the blood, balance was lost. Down went Lebda. Down went Stanley.
And no, the dent wasn’t “slight”.
In fact, it needed emergency service. Mike Bolt, the Keeper of the Cup, was taken to Joe Louis Arena, where Stan, like a forward who took a puck in the eye, was placed gently on the trainer’s table in the Red Wings dressing room, and operated on.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Detroit Red Wings | KK Hockey | Permalink
Tags: brett+lebda, chris+chelios, stanley+cup,
Comments
I’m not buying it because I was there. The bowl deformed, going from an O shape to an oblong shape as one side looked more like a crescent moon ( than a circle. That’s what happened.
Posted by George Malik from South Lyon, MI on 06/17/08 at 01:27 PM ET
One of these days, somebody is going to break the cup. If that day ever happens, the player who did it will have no choice but to immediately retire.
Whoever “broke” the cup must have felt extremely small. I mean, who wants to be known as the guy who broke the cup.
Posted by UMFan from Colorado on 06/17/08 at 01:44 PM ET
I’m not buying it. If they said it was Lilja, then maybe.
Ha! 
Whoever dropped it, I’m glad his name isn’t out there with 100% certainty. The poor klutz has no doubt suffered enough for his case of the dropsies.
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 06/17/08 at 01:50 PM ET
“The bowl deformed, going from an O shape to an oblong shape as one side looked more like a crescent moon ( than a circle.”
I noticed that on your blog, George, you finish that description with “but that’s all that was damaged.” Good grief!
I’m not saying it’s unforgivable or the worst thing in the world (god knows, that Cup has seen much worse), but it’s still a lot more significant than how it was played out in the initial press release, which basically made it sound like someone tipped it over and it needed polishing.
By your description and Duthie’s, I’d say it could fairly be considered more than a “slight dent”.
Posted by Alanah McGinley from British Columbia on 06/17/08 at 01:51 PM ET
Well, Alanah, it could have been worse, given that they were standing over eight feet up on a wet, narrow bar.
Lebda got chewed out. He keeps denying that he did it, but the Wings were extremely upset and embarrassed, and they knew that they got lucky. When I happened to see the inside of the Cup, I can tell you that the repair work from the time that the Hurricanes actually tore the bowl is still apparent.
It gets “broken” from time to time, but the Cup is…People forget that it’s mostly made from nickel, not silver, but the silver lends the Cup a level of malleability that most trophies don’t have, so if it gets dented, you can repair it without having to resort to extreme methods.
I’d rather see the Cup incur a few dents while bringing joy to thousands and thousands of people instead of seeing it kept away from the public. It’s a people’s trophy, if you will, and when you get to touch it or drink from it, you want everybody else in the room to experience that feeling, because it’s amazing.
Posted by George Malik from South Lyon, MI on 06/17/08 at 02:03 PM ET
The Stanley Cup that teams carry around the ice when they win the NHL championship isn’t even the original Stanley Cup. In 1969, league officials realized Lord Stanley’s 78-year-old trophy was getting brittle. Worried that it would be seriously damaged, they commissioned an exact replica. The original bowl was retired, and the replica is used today.
If you’ve been to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, Ontario, to see the Stanley Cup, you might not have seen the real Stanley Cup. Each year, every player on the winning cup team gets to spend one day with the trophy. In addition, the cup travels 250 days per year to charity events and NHL promotional activities. When the cup is out, yet another replica takes its place in the hall. How can you tell the difference? The real cup has about a dozen misspelled names, like the name of goalie Jacques Plante, and the word Boston in the 1972 engraving. All the errors are corrected on the replica.
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/hockey6.htm
Posted by Puck from San Francisco, CA on 06/17/08 at 02:18 PM ET
The players get the official Cup, the one with the rebuilt bowl and the real, messed-up spellings. I’ve seen it up close and personal when Peter Karmanos had it, and the boo boos were included.
Posted by George Malik from South Lyon, MI on 06/17/08 at 02:30 PM ET
When I happened to see the inside of the Cup, I can tell you that the repair work from the time that the Hurricanes actually tore the bowl is still apparent.
What the heck did Carolina do to it?
(And in my mind Lilja is to blame because it’s funny.)
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 06/17/08 at 02:52 PM ET
When they dropped it on the bowl, it unfortunately ripped slightly. There are a few little clips that were welded into place to reinforce the repair.
Posted by George Malik from South Lyon, MI on 06/17/08 at 03:12 PM ET
Although there have been plenty of incidents throughout the Cup’s history (I remember reading as a kid how it was left on the side of a road by a group of drunken players), this is the first I’ve heard of the Carolina and Anaheim stories. Probably another Bettman conspiracy.
Posted by YzermanZetterberg on 06/17/08 at 03:23 PM ET
I agree with George. Unlike every other trophy in the world, Stanley is a “fans’ trophy”. I really repect Chris Osgood for taking the cup downstairs to the fans at Cheli’s. While I wasn’t there, I understand it was an event of a lifetime.
Also, this story of the raucous party and the fall off the bar at Cheli’s is already part of the lore of the cup.
Posted by w2j2 on 06/17/08 at 03:58 PM ET
Maybe they should keep all the bands with the names intact and just have a silversmith craft a replacement bowl. It sounds like it’s only a matter of time before it gets mangled beyond repair ...
Although, one of my favorite books I picked up at a book sale once was a chemistry lab manual from 1918. Some of the experiments were the same ones I did in general chemistry in college (minus bending your own glass tubing), but I loved the fact that on several pages there weren’t just pencil scribblings, but also some perfectly round holes straight through the pages, probably from drops of concentrated acid. The usage marks were what made me get it.
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 06/17/08 at 04:02 PM ET
Although, one of my favorite books I picked up at a book sale once was a chemistry lab manual from 1918.
Oh yeah. Mine too.
Vacation sucks.
Posted by IwoCPO from Sunny San Diego, bitches on 06/18/08 at 04:57 AM ET
Oh yeah. Mine too.
So my nerd is showing. I’m comfortable with my science-geekiness!
Fire, I mean, acid bad!
Fire bad, too - and I’ve set a couple of those by accident. And some people think chemistry isn’t exciting.
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 06/18/08 at 07:15 AM ET
who the f***k cares about the stanley cup??? 
Posted by sexygirl from little rock,arkansas on 06/19/08 at 03:05 PM ET
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I’m not buying it. If they said it was Lilja, then maybe.
After the Memorial Cup debacle, this just hasn’t been a good season for hockey trophies. At least we can be thankful that Stanley didn’t fall apart faster than Mark Messier giving a speech.
Posted by Gabriel from San Diego, CA on 06/17/08 at 12:33 PM ET