Stanley
Cup History
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The Stanley Cup, the oldest
trophy competed for by professional athletes in North
America, was donated by Frederick Arthur, Lord Stanley of
Preston and son of the Earl of Derby, in 1893. Lord
Stanley purchased the trophy for 10 guineas ($50 at that
time) for presentation to the amateur hockey champions of
Canada. Since 1910, when the National Hockey Association
took possession of the Stanley Cup, the trophy has been
the symbol of professional hockey supremacy. It has been
competed for only by NHL teams since 1926 and has been
under the exclusive control of the NHL since 1946.
The Cup was originally a gold-lined silver bowl on an
ebony base, measuring seven inches high and 11-1/2-inches
in diameter.
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For about 40
years, Lord Stanley's silver bowl was the entire trophy,
but players on championship teams began scratching their
initials on the bowl. In response, sometime in the 1940s
silver bands were added to the bottom of the bowl with all
the names on winning teams engraved on them. The trophy
grew to its present height of 35-1/4 inches with a base 54
inches in circumferences. It weighs 32 pounds, though, in
the words of one ESPN announcer, "When you win it, it is
but a feather."
Though
Stanley wanted his Cup to be the domain of amateur hockey
players, professional leagues would eventually elbow their
way in. (Amateur teams competed for the Cup until 1910,
when the professional National Hockey Association (NHA)
was formed, which in 1917 became the National Hockey
League (NHL), whose teams competed for the Cup against
teams from other pro leagues until 1926. By that time, the
other leagues had folded, thus making the Stanley Cup the
exclusive domain of the NHL. In fact, Lord Stanley, later
Earl of Derby, returned to England ten months before the
first Stanley Cup playoff. Ironically, he never saw a
Stanley Cup game. |
