All sports have their championships, their seasonal winners and their trophies. They all have some sort of playoff to determine who the best of the best is. They take the players or drivers who fought all season to be at their finest, put them into position to try for the number one ranking, or division leader, and make the top ones battle until there is only one winner. And that winner is deemed “champion”.
Most sports have a big celebration at the end of the last game, confetti is thrown, loud music is blaring, and some city or person gets bragging rights for a whole year. Tired, sweaty, worn out players cry and laugh at the same time. Visions of their hard work throughout the year flash before their eyes. And then what happens?
Some bozo in a suit is holding a trophy and hands it to the OWNER of the team!
Yes, that’s right. In most sports, the owner gets a brand new, shiny trophy to do whatever he feels like doing with it. Take it home, put it next to little Timmy’s Fifth Grade Spelling Bee ribbon.
But one sport, honors the people who EARN the championship. Hockey. The Stanley Cup belongs to no man or woman. It belongs to all who have won it, past, present and for the future. Once won, the winning team chooses whose names belong forever etched on the Rings of Glory. For this trophy is for the commoner. There is only one, and it has been through a lot.
It has been kicked into a canal, left on a sidewalk in a snow bank, had babies baptized in it, served as a flowerpot and been at the bottom of swimming pools. And it wouldn’t want it any other way. It has names no one knows and names no one could forget on it. It even has a sad reminder etched on there for our ancestors to see: “2004-05 SEASON NOT PLAYED”.
So when that last game is played, and you see the two lines of players, skating single file, shaking hands with each other; tears of joy and sadness fill their eyes; some with angry looks, some with smiles, remember this:
There will still be a bozo in a suit holding a trophy, but he hands it to a player, a captain of his team, because it is his, and no one can ever take it from him.
