The Stanley Cup's Wild Adventures: Swimming Pools, Cereal Bowls, and Hockey's Most Storied Trophy

The Trophy That Champions Take Home

Most championship trophies are presented at an award ceremony, photographed extensively, and then locked in a display case. The Stanley Cup operates on a different system, and that difference explains its extraordinary biography. Each member of the championship team gets to spend a day alone with the Cup — no itinerary, no formal event, no institutional supervision beyond the presence of the Keeper of the Cup, a Hockey Hall of Fame staff member who travels with it.

The result is a trophy that has visited hospitals, nursing homes, bars, restaurants, ocean beaches, mountain peaks, shopping malls, and various foreign countries. It has been present at weddings, baptisms, and birthday parties. It has been taken to the Stanley Cup's namesake's homeland (Frederick Arthur Stanley, the Canadian Governor-General who donated it in 1892, was British). And it has been subjected to a range of physical experiences that no museum curator would permit.

The Swimming Pool Incident

The swimming pool story dates to 1994, when the New York Rangers won their first Stanley Cup since 1940. During the celebration, the Cup was brought to Mario Lemieux's pool party (Lemieux was not a Ranger but was close with several players) and ended up in the pool. Exactly how intentional this was varies depending on who tells the story. What is consistent across accounts is that the Cup went to the bottom of a filled swimming pool, was retrieved, and was none the worse for the experience.

The Cup's construction — layers of silver and nickel alloy on a steel base — made it survive this particular adventure without damage, though the engraving on its bands did require some attention afterward. The Cup has also reportedly been left in a snowdrift overnight during a party in a country where the temperature dropped significantly, been knocked off a stage at a victory rally, and rolled down the steps of a government building during a victory parade.

Breakfast From a Championship Trophy

The cereal bowl use has multiple reported instances from different years. The practice involves champions, and occasionally their children, eating cereal or ice cream directly from the bowl of the Cup, which is appropriately sized for such use. This has been photographed often enough to be well-documented rather than merely rumored. Some players have reportedly fed their dogs from it. One player's family baptized an infant in it.

The tradition of this kind of intimate, casual, sometimes irreverent use of the Cup reflects something genuine about hockey culture. The NHL's championship trophy is treated as a communal object to be experienced, not a monument to be venerated from a distance. Players who win it have often watched it from childhood with the specific goal of one day holding it above their head — and when the moment comes, many of them want to drink from it, eat from it, take it to their grandmother's house, or throw it in a pool.

The Keeper and the Dents

The Hockey Hall of Fame employs two dedicated Keepers of the Cup whose job is to travel with it everywhere it goes during the summer. They accompany it to every event, ensure it is treated with appropriate care while also allowing its famous informality, and manage the repairs and polishing that inevitably follow a championship summer. The Cup has several documented dents, scratches, and repairs that have accumulated over its history.

The current Cup used for presentations is actually a working replica — the original 1892 bowl and early bands are held at the Hockey Hall of Fame under controlled conditions, too fragile for regular travel. The "Presentation Cup" used today is itself vintage enough to carry significant history, and the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup bands at its base contain the engraved names of every championship team and player since the 1920s. When the Cup falls into a swimming pool or serves cereal, it is doing so while carrying the names of a century of champions around its sides — which is perhaps the most appropriate context for an object that represents the game's highest honor.