from Eric Duhatschek of the Globe and Mail,

According to (Phil) Pritchard, the tradition of an NHL player getting to spend a day in the company of Lord Stanley began almost completely by accident – and can be traced back to the events of a single night in Toronto in June of 1989, during the league’s annual awards ceremony....

That evening, as the award show afterparty was winding down, Pritchard serendipitously passed within earshot of a conversation taking place between Frank Torpey then the NHL’s security chief and Flames’ forward Colin Patterson, a Selke Trophy finalist.

Patterson grew up in the north Toronto neighborhood of Rexdale and had just made a request to Torpey – was there any chance to get the Stanley Cup out to his parents’ home for a few hours the next day, so they could celebrate the Flames’ championship with family, friends and neighbors?

Torpey told him no: That security around the Stanley Cup had tightened, ever since word got out that it had appeared on stage at a strip club in Edmonton, in the immediate aftermath of the Oilers’ 1984 win.

Pritchard, who was packing up the trophies, volunteered to help.

“I introduced myself and asked Colin where he lived,” Pritchard said. “When he told me where, I said, ‘hey I can take the Cup up to you, if you want, in the morning for a few hours’ – because I had an event later that day anyway in that same part of town.

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