Many a National Hockey League player who has won a major award–Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player, and so on–has stated that he would willingly trade his personal honors if his team could win the Stanley Cup. In pro hockey it is almost a religious object. Yet this great symbol has been abused on occasion. Once a member of the winning Ottawa team kicked the cup into the Rideau Canal, but the canal was frozen and the Cup was recovered. Another time someone connected with the Kenora Thistles Hockey Club got angry and threatened to throw it into a lake.
The zaniest Stanley Cup adventure happened one year when Montreal won it. Some players began to celebrate. After a few drinks they began to drive around in an automobile with the Cup. The car had a flat and the players got out to change the tire. The Cup was placed on the sidewalk. When the flat was fixed, the players drove away and left the Cup where they had put it. No doubt, had the trophy been lost, the fans and team officials would have slaughtered the inebriated players. Fortunately someone in the car missed the Cup. The car was turned around and the men went looking for it.
The symbol of hockey’s championship was still there on the sidewalk.
From The Giant Book of More Strange But True Sports Stories by Howard Liss. Illustrations by Joe Mathieu.
lucky montreal players..lol…also different times i guess
nowadays you cant leave anything on the sidewalk and expect it to be there 30 seconds later (least not in the city….villages are a different story all together)
According to the link the canal incident took place in 1905 and the sidewalk incident took place in 1924. They don’t list the throwing in the lake incident, but the link is just the 16 Craziest Things, so I guess someone pitching the cup into a lake didn’t rate, so I don’t know what year it was, but based on the team name, I’m guessing it was in 1907 when the Kenora Thistles won challenges from two different teams.