I have for some time been thinking that it would be a good thing if there were a challenge cup which could be held from year to year by the champion hockey team in the Dominion Stanley wrote to the Ottawa Athletic Association in 1892 He later purchased a silver bowl for 10 guineas equal to about 50 at the time and created rules for how teams would win this new trophy In 1893 it was decided that the champion of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada would start with the trophy The first team to claim the Stanley Cup then known as the Dominion Challenge Trophy was the Montreal AAA The AAA won the trophy by finishing the 1893 season with seven wins and just one loss in league play Two teams challenged the AAA for the title the next year But the AAA defeated the Montreal Victorias and Ottawa Generals to hold on to the trophy Winning back-to-back titles was common in the old days of hockey but it has become
much more difficult in modern times In fact the 2017 Pittsburgh Penguins were the first team in nearly 20 years to win back-to-back Stanley Cups Captain Sidney Crosby led the Penguins to a 4 2 series victory over the Nashville Predators as Pittsburgh earned its second straight Stanley Cup The last team to win consecutive titles was the Detroit Red Wings in 1997 and 1998 The Penguins Stanley Cup win in 2017 was their fifth title overall but they still have a long way to go to catch the Montreal Canadiens The NHL’s oldest team won the Stanley Cup a record 24 times from 1916 to 1993 Their total through 2017 was 11 more than the next best team the Toronto Maple Leafs A lot of Montreal Canadiens have had their names engraved on the Stanley Cup over the years That concept began in 1906 07 when the Montreal Wanderers had their names engraved inside the bowl The tradition didn’t catch on right away but starting in 1924
teams have put the names of each player coach owner and team executive on the Cup It’s one of the traditions that makes the Cup unique Canadiens legend Henri Richard has had his name on the Cup more times than any other player having been etched in silver 11 times With more than 100 winning teams it’s no surprise that the trophy ran out of room for all of the names Multiple times The Hockey Hall of Fame had a solution Over the years the Hall started taking bands off the trophy and archiving them to make room for more names The battle for the NHL’s championship is a grueling two-month marathon called the Stanley Cup Playoffs There are four rounds and it takes 16 wins to raise the trophy Teams can plan on playing as many as 28 games in the playoffs That’s more than one-third as many games as are in the entire regular season The championship series is called the Stanley Cup Final It has played host to some
of the most iconic moments in NHL history People around the world but especially in the United States and Canada tune in every June to see who will claim the Cup New York Islanders captain Denis Potvin touches the Cup after a long playoff journey in 1980
