The Stanley Cup is the oldest trophy competed for by professional teams in North America. It is competition most sports fans could care less about who wins, let alone who is playing.
It’s been battled for since 1892, a gift from Canada’s Governor General at the time, Lord Stanley of Preston. And only twice since, in 1919 due to the influenza epidemic and a lockout of players in 2005, has a winner not been crowned.
By the time you read this there’s a significant likelihood that the Florida Panthers from Miami will have become the 130th team to have its members names etched on one of it. It would be their first and comes in the team’s 30th season.
Edmonton, on the other hand, had a string of four ‘Cup wins in five seasons from 1984 to 1988, powered by the great Wayne Gretzky. Overall they have five wins.
It would be an odds makers’ nightmare for the Edmonton Oilers to rally from a 3-games-to-none-deficit to win the Cup. It’s something that only the Toronto Maple Leafs have done back in 1942 by defeating the Detroit Red Wings.
Edmonton did at least stave off elimination with game four’s 8-1 thrashing of Florida, June 15 at home but now must win twice on the road.
To win the Stanley Cup as a team and city is quite an honor, but there’s an additional perk. Every player, coach, management and club staffer get listed in perpetuity with names on a trophy that weighs 34 1/2 pounds and just shy of three feet in height.
To show how obscure interest is in the Stanley Cup, which runs concurrently with the NBA finals, the ‘Cup cultists delivered just 3.1 million viewers on ABC for game four.
Game two of the NBA finals between Boston and Dallas averaged four times that number with 12.31 million noses pointing at the big screen. BTW, the last Final Four produced 12.84 million, one-tenth to the Super Bowl’s 124 million.
Local interest focuses on hometown product, the Oilers’ Derek Ryan. The former Shadle Park High School grad and face-off specialist never suited for the first two games and played a total of 15 minutes in the two home games.
One of the fun parts of winning a Stanley Cup is it gets to go home with every player for just one day and be paraded around for fans to get close to. And with Ryan at 37, he may not have many more chances for that.
Another local product, Tyler Johnson, won back-to-back Stanley Cups with Tampa Bay in 2020 and 2021 but because of COVID-19 was only able to bring the trophy home in 2021.
I was fortunate to be part of Spokane Oldtimers Hockey back in 2001 when Alaskan Scott Parker, who played for the local Spokane Braves, decided he would bring the Cup to the old Planet Ice rink in Spokane Valley. We all got a private showing in the club locker room and one of my most cherished photos in my arm around the Stanley Cup.
About those American teams capturing the ‘Cup.
Of concern to legions of the nearly 39 million residents of the Stanley Cup’s birthplace in Canada is the fact that it has been so very long since the home boys won the trophy.
The 1993 Montreal Canadians are the last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup. And outside of Edmonton this year, and Vancouver in 2011 just the fourth team in the last 18 seasons to make the final.
Canadian teams won the first 24 times until the Seattle Metropolitans in 1917 started the trend of American-based teams winning the Stanley Cup.
The National Hockey League assumed control of the Stanley Cup following the 1925-26 season and U.S. teams won six of 10 times between 1930 and 1939. The trend shifted back in Canada’s favor by a 7-3 count from 1940 to 1949.
And between 1950 and 1969 Canadian teams — led by Montreal’s 10 consecutive appearances and five wins in a row from 1956 to 1960 — won 15 times.
The decade of the 1980s began the southward Stanley Cup shift, it’s said in large part because of the stronger U.S. dollar. Since then, U.S. teams have triumphed 31 out of 40 times through 2019.
Perhaps as the 2024 playoffs end one way or another, if the Oilers do lose, the weight of carrying a nation on its shoulders may have led to Edmonton’s so far dismal showing?
— Paul Delaney is a sports writer for Cheney Free Press. Email him at [email protected].
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