from Jenny Powers of the New York Post,

“It’s one of the greatest trophies in all of sports, The Holy Grail, the ultimate in power and achievement and what separates The Stanley Cup from all the other trophies is the tradition that each player has his name inscribed on it and gets to spend a day with it. No one is taking home the Lombardi Trophy,” Bruce Beck, lead sports anchor for WNBC-TV, told The Post. Beck has covered six Stanley Cup Finals.

At the ripe old age of 124 years old, weighing in at 35 lb. and standing three feet tall, the Stanley Cup is the oldest trophy competed for in professional sports and the only one with 24-hour supervision, in the form of a chaperone/bodyguard who has come to be known by fans as the “Keeper of the Cup.”

Prior to 1989, that job didn’t exist. Then one day the Cup needed to travel north of Toronto for an appearance with the Calgary Flames’ Colin Patterson. Phil Pritchard, a 27-year-old who had just started working with the Hockey Hall of Fame that week, raised his hand and volunteered to make the trip.

“After that, I just kept on raising my hand and after a while fans would see me and say, ‘Hey, that’s the Keeper of the Cup,’” Pritchard, who is now 55 and travels up to 170 days a year with the Cup and shares their adventures together on Twitter @Keeperofthecup, told The Post.

The Cup itself is on the road 300 days a year. During hockey season, there are three Keepers. In the off-season, when the Cup must make its way around to all the players on the championship-winning team, two additional Keepers join the crew.

According to tradition, Keepers wear white gloves when handling the Cup. Pritchard, who is the vice president of the resource center and the curator of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto in addition to his Cup-shepherding duties, says he’s kept every pair he’s ever owned in plastic bags with dates written on them. “My sock and t-shirt drawers are filled with them. I guess it’s the curator side of me.”

more