Another hockey season has come to an end, with the Pittsburgh Penguins (still mourning my Blackhawks’ first round loss, smh) being crowned the champions for the fourth time in team history. Hands have been shaken, champagne has been sprayed, and now the real fun begins: a summer with Stanley, perhaps the coolest tradition in all of sports, in which each player gets his own personal day with the cup.
GIF courtesy of giphy.com
Lord Stanley has been all over the globe; I guarantee the trophy is more well-traveled than you are. Along the way, it has been involved in all kinds of shenanigans. Players have had their children baptized in it, and it’s been known to go for a swim from time to time. Through all this, many players have participated in the tradition of filling the trophy with food. Here are some highlights.
Cereal
Photo courtesy of cbssports.com
Here’s one way to make your morning bowl of Lucky Charms more exciting: eat it out of a 35-pound silver cup. After winning the cup last season, the Blackhawks’ Andrew Desjardins was the latest in a long line of NHL players who have indulged in their favorite cereal out of good ole Stanley. Others include the Kings’ Anze Kopitar, the Bruins’ Brad Marchand, and the Capitals’ Mike Richards.
Dog Food
Photo courtesy of tampabay.com
This one might make you rethink eating anything out of the cup if you’re ever lucky enough to get the chance. But rest assured, the Stanley Cup is a VIT (Very Important Trophy) and has a handler that cleans and keeps an eye on it 24/7. These are Nolan Pratt’s dogs after Tampa Bay won in 2004, but many dogs before and after them have been lucky enough to eat and drink out of it with their fellow humans.
Meatballs
Photo courtesy of firstwefeast.com
Meatball, meatball, trophy underneath… this is one of the more random foods chosen to fill the cup and definitely one of the messiest as well. If Luc Robitaille of the Kings was trying to be creative, he did a good job. I hope there was some spaghetti in there too.
Chicken Wings
Photo courtesy of imperialwingsbuffalo.com
Patrick Kane (love you always, Kaner) of the Blackhawks allegedly filled up the cup with buffalo wings from Imperial Pizza during one of his three tours with Stanley around his native home of Buffalo, NY. There are no pictures, but the cup’s handler apparently made sure the cup was lined with foil first…
M&M’s
Photo courtesy of firstwefeast.com
Shoutout to the LA Kings for being men of the people and filling up Stanley with food to share with the public. During their bar crawl through LA the day after winning, Alec Martinez filled up the trophy with various types of M&M’s for fellow bar-goers to help themselves to #makeitrain.
Pierogi
Photo courtesy of nhl.com
Marian Hossa, also of the Blackhawks, hails from Slovakia. So naturally, he took the Stanley Cup back home and filled it with pierogi. Hossa is clearly a man of habit, because he’s done this each of the three times Chicago has won the cup in the past seven years. Respect.
Ice Cream
Photo courtesy of Tyler Toffoli via Twitter
Here’s a good way to give yourself unreasonably high expectations for ice cream sundaes for the rest of your life. LA’s Tyler Toffoli used the trophy as a giant ice cream dish during his day with the cup in 2014. I think if I had one day with the cup, I would do the same thing.
Chocolate Milk
Photo courtesy of cbssports.com
Drinking chocolate milk out of a giant silver trophy might just be every kid’s dream, regardless of whether they know it or not. Doing it while wearing a Superman suit was just an added bonus for Dustin Brown’s kids after the Kings won in 2012.
Poutine
Photo courtesy of Flickr
You didn’t think this list could go without the mention of at least one Canadian favorite, did you? In case you aren’t familiar, poutine is one hot mess of a dish that combines fries, hot cheese curds and gravy. Surprisingly, I could only find one instance of this, and that was Aaron Rome of the Ducks celebrating after Anaheim won the cup in 2007.
GIF courtesy of giphy.com
Good luck this summer, Stanley.