Summer with Stanley

Well, the NBA and NHL playoffs are in the books, and as far football it looks like we'll once again have to go through "Football America Held Hostage" starring Brett Favre and the NFC North. Which means that summer has finally been cleared for what it's supposed to be about: the cut of the grass, the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd. Now that Kobe and Sidney have each taken a victory lap, it's baseball season.

There is one thing about the past weekend that really caught my eye though, something unique and greatly underappreciated in the world of sports. When players in other leagues talk about reaching the top, they refer to it simply as "winning the title" or some variation therein. For hockey, however, success has a clear cut and unyielding definition: the Stanley Cup. Not "a Stanley Cup", as we say when talking about winning "a Super Bowl" or "a pennant" or "a NBA title". In hockey you either have the Stanley Cup or you don't. Most people don't realize this or about the two dozen other cherished traditions that actually make hockey a very exciting and passionate sport.

Which is another sad indictment of how much Gary Bettman has mismanaged his own league - seriously, Gary, no matter how much baseball fans might disapprove of Bud Selig, they're not going to go out of their way to boo him during the presentation of the championship trophy. It's just wrong that such a unique sports tradition go unnoticed, though given the spike in viewership for the seven-game series between Detroit and Pittsburgh that might slowly be changing. In hockey, you don't get a copy of the trophy for every title you win: you get the Stanley Cup, there's only one, and keep it long enough for everybody to have a turn paying homage. Customarily, every member of the team and front office gets to spend one day with it, most with special requests that range from highly emotional (players take it to the cemetery to show deceased loved ones) to the "conquering hero returns" motif (many request using it in a parade or visit the hometown digs) and occasionally rowdy (Mark Messier apparently spent his time with the '94 Cup at a variety of New York's finer gentleman's clubs; legend has it that Mario Lemiuex's day with it ended with the Cup floating to the bottom of his swimming pool.)

Put it this way: no other sports trophy comes close to attaining the aura of the Stanley Cup. I don't see full-time handlers with white gloves escorting the Lombardi Trophy everywhere it goes, particularly since there are 42 of them in various NFL trophy display cases.

For some of the Cup's more eclectic misadventures over the 109 years of its awarding, click here.