The Stanley cup is the trophy that is awarded to the last team standing and the winner of the Hockey playoffs. Unless you have played the game, you have no real idea how hard this trophy is to win and it is the hardest trophy to win of all the sports trophies out there. To win this trophy you literally leave everything out there on the ice throughout the entire playoffs.
Hockey is more of a blue collar sport, only because you show up at the rink ready to get down and dirty and work very hard at not just standing up on skates, but stick handling drills, passing drills, shooting drills and turning on a dime while skating full speed and handling the puck drills. Those that have played the game know that there is a lot more than these basic skills I mentioned, there is also the game inside the game, not to mention to a first time watcher, the game seems pretty fast and violent. The violent part is really not that violent, it is only one player checking another player, to get the leverage on him in order to take the puck away from him, A hockey player should also be good at geometry, as it is a game of angles and having good puck sense to be at the right spot at the right time. In order to take the puck away from the opposing player, you have to anticipate where that player is going and take away his angle to make a play and then be at that spot at the right time. Those that grew up during the days of the great Bobby Orr, would see exactly what I am talking about, just that he was so good, he made it look very easy.
A Hockey season may not be as long as a Baseball season, but if it was you would have more players being lost from a team for extended periods, because of the physicality part of the game. Hockey is also a true “Team” sport, you very seldom see just one player carry a team for any length of time, with that said….. when you build a championship team, you don’t just build a team full of talented players, you need team chemistry which will help you build an identity for the team. The Boston Bruins had this chemistry and identity in 2011, to which they won the holy grail of trophies, being Lord Stanley s cup. Now the playoffs in hockey are like no other playoffs in sports, they are basically a whole different season within the season, you have the top eight teams from each conference and whoever the last two teams left are, would make the finals their fourth round of four out of seven games to win each round. there is a total of twenty eight games in the playoffs if a team plays all four rounds to a game seven, with the magic number being sixteen “mission sixteen”, meaning it takes sixteen wins to win this most prestigious trophy. During these playoffs it takes grit and determination by each player of each team, you also have a lot of banged up players, the deeper they go into the playoffs, which makes a hockey player one of the toughest athletes to play any sport.
The Stanley cup is won from literally a lot of blood, sweat and tears, not to mention some broken bones, stitches and a few surgeries later. That hard rubber puck will leave a mark, from a shot traveling over one hundred miles an hour and especially if it hits you in the right place, just imagine being a goalie without the right equipment and having to stop one of those shots? I played goalie and you still feel the impact, even with the right equipment. I have heard some sports Individuals say that, all sports need to let the players have their day with the their respective trophy they have won, like hockey players do? What I say to that is, the trophy you see the players with is not the true Stanley cup, as the true Stanley cup always stays in a glass case within the Hockey hall of fame, in Toronto, Canada. Those three rings you see below the cup itself, has all the players names engraved into it, that have won this prestigious trophy and when one ring gets full, then it is taken out and replaced with another to fill up, you can see all the rings including the real trophy at the hall of fame, but if you are a true hockey player, you never want to touch it, unless you have earned the right to touch it, by making it through “mission sixteen”. Those that watch the hockey playoffs and see the conference champions surround their conference trophy they just won without touching that trophy reason is, because they don’t want to jinx their chance they just earned, so they can compete for the most prestigious of all trophies in sports……….. The Stanley cup.
” Hockey is a blue collar sport, only because be prepared to bring your lunch pail to work, just as the blue collar workers do and work their butts off to achieve success”
” Lord Stanley cup is the most prestigious of trophies, because it is the hardest to win of any sport”
” not every hockey player gets a chance to compete for the Stanley cup, which makes it the Holy Grail of all trophies”