When...or
if...a player ever gets a chance, let alone wins, a
Stanley Cup championship sometimes has very little to do with how good a player he is as an individual because the Cup is, of course, really a
team prize. Some players -- such as left wing
Chris Hayes of the
Boston Bruins, left wing
Esa Tikkanen of the
Edmonton Oilers, and left wing
Bruce Cowick of the
Philadelphia Flyers -- actually got their names engraved on the Cup even
before ever appearing in a single NHL regular season game, while the names of some others -- such as
Hall of Fame Honored Members
Jean Ratelle, Mike Gartner, and
Brad Park -- can be found nowhere at all on the trophy despite their having played in a combined total of
3,825 NHL regular season and
406 play-off games in their
53 seasons of play in the NHL.
Chris Hayes, Bruce Cowick, Esa Tikkanen
Achieving hockey's ultimate goal often requires
luck as well as skill, and that
“Stanley Cup Luck” smiled in spades on rookies Hayes, Tikkanen, and Cowick. Of these former
Boston Bruin left winger
Chris Hayes was perhaps the “luckiest” of all! After three years with the
OHL Oshawa Generals (
1964-67) where he was a teammate of
Bobby Orr and helped the Generals reach the
Memorial Cup finals in
1966 (losing to the
Edmonton Oil Kings in six games), Hayes went on to play four more years (
1967-71) of amateur hockey at
Loyola College in
Montreal before signing with the
Boston Bruins as a free agent in
1971. As a 25-year old rookie, Hayes played with the Bruins'
CHL Oklahoma City Blazers farm club in
1971-72, but when that club was knocked out of the play-offs he was called up to the Bruins with whom he dressed in a single game in the Stanley Cup finals against the
New York Rangers, a series which Boston won in six games to capture their second Cup in three years. Hayes remained in Boston the next season, but did so playing for the
AHL Boston Braves and saw no further action with the Bruins. After one more full pro season played with the
CHL Albuquerque Six-Guns in
1973-74, Hayes missed the entire following season because of injuries which forced his retirement after playing in just four games with the
NAHL Mohawk Valley Comets in
1975-76. With his one NHL appearance coming in the 1972 finals with the Cup winning Bruins, however, Hayes became eligible to have his name engraved on the Stanley Cup for that
single NHL career game, however for some unexplained reason both he and teammate Gerry Peters were left off the Cup although their names were included in the winning roster listing.
Esa Tikkanen traveled a somewhat different route to his first of five Stanley Cups. The Oilers drafted the feisty Finn in the fourth round of the
1983 and he joined the team during the
1985 Stanley Cup finals against the
Philadelphia Flyers straight from representing Finland in the
World Championship Tournament in
Prague, Czechoslovakia. Although he had no points and one minor penalty in three games, that was good enough to get his name on the Cup because he had played in a game in the finals. Over the next
eight years he won
three more Cups with Edmonton with whom he played until
March 17, 1993, when he became another one of many Oilers to be traded to the
New York Rangers over the years, and in
1994 he got his name on the Stanley Cup for the
fifth time. By the time he retired in
2001, Tikkanen had appeared in
186 Stanley Cup games in
13 play-off years collecting
72 goals (
eleven of which were
game winners) and
60 assists for
132 points with
Edmonton, New York, St. Louis, Vancouver, and
Washington. He also appeared in a total of
877 regular season games in his career...but had yet to appear in a single one of those until after winning his first Cup in
1985.
Winger
Bruce Cowick won his Stanley Cup in
1974 with the
Philadelphia Flyers, a team, however, with which he would
never play in regular season game. Philadelphia had acquired Cowick in
May, 1973, from the
WHL San Diego Gulls for four players including
Bob Currier, the player that the Flyers had taken 6th overeall in the
first round of the
1969 NHL Draft
before taking Hall of Famer
Bob Clarke in the
second round (
17th overall) of the same lottery. Cowick spent the
1973-74 season with the
AHL Richmond Robins with which he had a modest
21 points. When the Robins were eliminated in the first round of the Calder Cup playoffs, however, Cowick was among the players called up to the Flyers as spares. He unexpectedly got his big break on
May 2nd when when
Fred Shero inserted the winger in the sixth game of the Semi-Final series with the
New York Rangers to provide some fourth line muscle and he went on to appear in the club's remaining eight post season games (no points,
2 shots,
9 PIM). Less than a month after the he helped the Flyers skate the Cup around the
Spectrum ice after
Bernie Parent shut out the
Boston Bruins on
May 19 by a
1-0 score, Cowick was claimed by the nascent
Washington Capitals in Expansion Draft on
June 12, 1974. In
65 games with the woeful Caps in
1974-75 he had just
eleven points -- and was
-42 -- before being claimed on waivers by
St. Louis on
May 21, 1975. Cowick played in just
five more NHL games with the
Blues the following year before retiring and returning to his native
British Columbia were he spent
27 years as a police officer in
Victoria before retiring in
2003.
At the
"unlucky" end of the Stanely Cup stick are the three Hall of Famers --
Jean Ratelle, Mike Gartner, and
Brad Park. An elegant and smooth skating center, Ratelle appeared in
1,281 regular season games (
491-776--1,267) and
123 Stanley Cup tilts (
32-66--98) with the
New York Rangers and
Boston Bruins between
1961 and
1981 without ever winning a Cup. After a year with the
WHA Cincinnati Stingers as a teenager in
1978-79, Gartner, a high scoring right winger, spent
eighteen seasons in the
NHL with
Washington, Minnesota, New York Rangers, Toronto, and
Phoenix totaling
1,432 regular season (
708-627--1,335) and
122 play-off (
43-50--93) games without ever reaching the finals. Defenseman
Brad Park appeared in
1,113 regular season NHL games (
213-683--896) and another
161 play-off contests (
35-90--125) in his
eighteen year career with
New York, Boston, and
Detroit. While making it to the finals
three times, Park also never got to
“taste champaign” from the small silver bowl.
The longest and shortest Stanley Cup overtime games...
In the spring of
1936, right wing
Modere "Mud" Bruneteau was an all but annonymous 21- year old rookie on the
Detroit Red Wings who had only played in half of that club's regular season games (
24 of
48) in
1935-36 and collected just
two career points (both goals) as an NHL'er. On
March 24, 1936, he took to the ice in Montreal for his first ever
Stanley Cup game facing the
Montreal Maroons, but the time he took off his uniform off many,
many hours later his name would be engraved in the hearts and minds of hockey fans forever.
Normie Smith was in goal for the Wings while 1935
Vezina Trophy winner
Lorne Chabot minding the twine for the Maroons, and both were perfect through
sixty minutes of regulation thus sending the contest into overtime at
0-0 -- and that's the way it would remain for almost
six full overtime periods! It finally ended when Bruneteau beat Chabot at
16:30 of that sixth overtime with just the third goal (and also third overall NHL point) of his career (as well as his first ever in the playoffs) to give the Wings a
1-0 victory in the longest game in NHL history at
176:30. That record still stands today
eighty-two years later. The Red Wings would go on to sweep the best-of-three series from the Maroons and then defeat the
Toronto Maple Leafs in the finals, three-games-to-one, to capture their
first ever Stanley Cup championship. Ironically the Leafs only win in the finals came in game three which they won,
4-3, in the
fourth overtime period!
"Mud" Bruneteau, Brian Skrudland
The current record for the
fastest playoff overtime goal came half a century after Bruneteau's marathon winner. After losing the first game of the
1986 Stanley Cup finals,
5-2, to the
Calgary Flames on
May 16th, the visiting
Montreal Canadiens were in danger of going down on May 18th by two games when game two was knotted at
2-2 at the end of sixty minutes. Surprisingly rookie Habs' coach
Jean Perron sent out his checking line of
Brian Skrudland, Mike McPhee and
Claude Lemieux to begin overtime which, in hindsight, proved to be a "genius" move. After winning the opening face-off, Skrudland and McPhee unexpectedly found themselves on a 2-on-1 break which, after faking a shot, McPhee used to slip the puck to Skrudland who cut to the net and calmly redirected it past a surpised
Mike Vernon just
nine seconds into overtime. The Canadiens would go on to sweep the next three games to capture their
23rd Stanely Cup title.
Letting Quayle near the Grail...
One of the unique aspects of the
Stanley Cup is that it permanently carries the names of the thousands of men -- and even some women (see below for that) -- who have contributed to its winning. Every summer the Cup is taken to Montreal where the bottom "ring" of its massive barrel shaped base is removed and the names of the championship club and up to
forty of its
owners, managers, coaches, scouts, players, and
trainers are incused by hand in the silver, letter by letter, using a hammer and individual steel dies. Most of those names appear exactly as they are submitted to the engraver, but over the years mistakes have been made in the process of transcription in a surprising number of them resulting in permanent spelling errors as once each letter has been cut it in the silver it can't be corrected. Among the players who have had their names spelled incorrectly on the Stanley Cup at least once are:
Cy Denneny, the player-coach of the
1929 champion
Boston Bruins is listed on the Cup twice -- once as a player and again as coach. One listing is spelled correctly, but the other includes an extra
"n" spelling his name as
"Cy Dennenny." "Razzle Dazzle Line" member
Gerry Heffernan, of the
1944 champion
Montreal Canadiens, appears with his first name misspelled with a
"J" as "Jerry Hefferman." Current
Montreal Canadiens' GM
Bob Gainey's name appears on the Cup
six times --
five times as a player with the Habs, and once more as
GM of the
Dallas Stars in
1999. When he won his first Cup with the Canadiens in
1976, however, his name "
R.Gainy."
When the
Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley Cup in
1952, the engraver got both center
Alex Delvecchio's name wrong spelling in as "
Belvecchio," as well as that of his coach,
Tommy Ivan, had the first two letters of his last name reversed so that is came out a "
Nivan." In
1996, right wing
Adam Deadmarsh of the
Colorado Avalanche found is last name spelled "
Deadmarch" but in this case it was actually It was later corrected -- the
first time such a repair was successfully made.
No player in NHL history has had his name engraved on the Stanley Cup then did
"The Pocket Rocket" -- center
Joseph Henri Richard -- of the
Montreal Canadiens' squads during his twenty seasons playing with the Habs between
1956 and
1975 appears on the Cup
eleven times as a member of the winning Canadiens' clubs in
1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969,, 1971, and
1973. His longtime teammate with the Habs, the great
Jean Béliveau, has him beat by a mile, however, with his name appearing a remarkable
seventeen times --
ten times as a player, and
seven more times as a member of the Canadiens' front office!!
"Letting Quayle near the Grail..." of course refers to former U.S. Vice President J. Danforth Quayle's famous gaff when he "corrected" a student's spelling of "potato" (to "potatoe") at an elementary school spelling bee in Trenton, New Jersey, on June 15, 1992.
The "distaff" side of the Stanley Cup...
While all of the players who win and get their names engraved on the
Stanley Cup on the ice are men, the names of
thirteen women also appear among them! Here are the stories of five of them...
This first to ever be engraved on the Cup was
Lily Murphy which appeared there mysteriously in
1911.
"Her connection to hockey is dubious," notes the Hockey Hall of Fame,
"although her husband, Dennis Murphy, whose name is also on the trophy, was president of the Bank of Ottawa when the original Ottawa Senators won the Stanley Cup in 1911."
Marguerite Norris has her name in the Cup twice as
President of the
Detroit Red Wings when that club won it
1954 and
1955. The daughter of
James Norris who bought the club in
1932, Ms. Norris was the Wings' chief executive from
1952 to
1955. (She died in
1994 at the age of
67.)
Denise DeBartolo York, the daughter of late construction magnate and former
Pittsburgh Penguins' owner
Edward J. DeBartolo Sr., got her name on the Cup as the 30-year old
President of the Pens in
1991. She is now the owner of the
NFL San Francisco 49'ers.
Charlotte Grahame is included with the names of the
2001 champion
Colorado Avalanche for which she was the
Senior Director of Hockey Administration. The wife of former NHL goalie
Ron Grahame, she added another distinction when her son,
John Grahame, got this name on the Cup as well as a goalie with the
Tampa Bay Lightening in
2004 thus making her a part of the only
mother-son combination to have their names engraved on the trophy.
Lisa Ilitch Murray has her name along with that of her father,
Mike Illitch, and several other family members in the Cup three times as a co-owner of the
Detroit Red Wings when that club won the title in
1997, 1998, and
2002.
The complete list of names of women that are engraved on Stanley Cup...
Lily Murphy (Ottawa, 1911),
Marguerite Norris (Detroit, 1954, 1955),
Sonia Scurfield (Calgary, 1989),
Marie Denise DeBartolo York (Pittsburgh, 1991),
Marian Ilitch (Detroit 1997, 1998, 2002, 2008),
Denise Ilitch Lites (Detroit 1997, 1998, 2002, 2008),
Lisa Ilitch Murray (Detroit 1997, 1998, 2002, 2008),
Carole Ilitch (Detroit 1997, 1998, 2002, 2008),
Marie Carnevale (New Jersey, 2000),
Callie Smith (New Jersey, 2000),
Charlotte Grahame (Colorado, 2001),
Nancy Beard (Detroit, 2002), and
Susan Samueli (Anaheim, 2007).
The last game winning goal of the year...
Sometime in the first two weeks of June the last
game winning goal of the 2015-16 season -- which of course will also be this year's
Stanley Cup winning goal -- will be scored. Sometimes these goals are scored by
Hall of Famers, other times by players with far more
modest careers and credentials. All we know for sure right now is that the
puck that will go in the net for that
Cup-clinching goal and the
stick that will propel it there are both now sitting in a box or in a storeroom in one of these two clubs'
home arenas. It is yet to be determined, however, exactly which puck and stick those will be, and at who's hands the
Cup winning shot will come. Here are the stories of how and by whom a few of those Cup winning goals have been scored in the past...
Although
Mark Messier won six Stanley Cups (
Five with
Edmonton and
one with the
New York Rangers) and scored
109 playoff goals, his only Cup-winning marker came at
Madison Square Garden on
June 14, 1994, when the Ranger captain beat
Kirk McLean at
13:29 of the second period of the
seventh game of the finals for a
3-2 victory over the
Vancouver Canucks.
Chicago Black Hawk right winger
Harold "Mush" March scored his cup winner at
Chicago Stadium on
April 10, 1934, against Detroit's
Wilf Cude at
10:05 of the
second overtime to give the Hawks a
1-0 victory in game four of the then best-of-five finals. That lone goal came on Chicago's
53rd shot of the game while the Hawks'
Charlie Gardiner (who died two months later of a cerebral hemorrhage) stopped all
40 Detroit shots for his
1-0 Cup winning shutout. While rough-and-tumble winger
Bob "Hound" Kelly only scored
nine goals in
109 NHL play-off games, one of those gave his
Philadelphia Flyers their second consecutive Cup when he beat
Buffalo Sabres' goalie
Roger Crozier just
eleven seconds into the third period of game six of the finals played at the
Aud in on
May 27, 1975, in a
2-0 Bernie Parent shut-out.
The great
Gordie Howe's only career Cup winner came at the
Olympia on
April 14, 1955, at
19:49 of the
second period of
game seven of the finals in which the
Red Wings defeated the
Montreal Canadiens, 3-1. (The Wings -- who got all
four of their wins in the Finals in Detroit -- had edged out the Canadiens for
home ice for the series owing to a late season
forfeit win at
Montreal on
March 17, 1955, when
NHL President Clarence Campbell stopped the game (with Detroit leading
4-1 in the first period) when the crowd rioted in protest of Campbell's suspension of Habs' sta
r Maurice Richard for the remainder of the season and the playoffs after he had knocked out linseman
Cliff Thompson in Boston four nights earlier.) The 1955 Cup was the Wings' and Howe's
fourth in
six years -- and it was also the
last time "Mr. Hockey" would ever hoist it in victory. Colorful winger
Eddie "The Entertainer" Shack got his Cup winning goal at
Maple Leaf Gardens on
April 18, 1963, when he beat Detroit's
Terry Sawchuk at
13:28 of the third period in the
3-1 Leafs' game five Cup winner. (Toronto's other two goals in that title game were scored by
Dave Keon -- both shorthanded!)
Hockey Hall of Fame winger
Bryan Hextall Sr. collected his Cup winner in
Toronto on
April 13, 1940, beating the Leafs'
Walter "Turk" Broda at
2:07 of
overtime to give his
New York Rangers their
third Cup title in a
dozen years -- and also their
last in more than another
half century until the Broadway Blues finally got their fourth
54 years later in
1994. In
1984 feisty center
Ken "The Rat" Linseman helped the
Edmonton Oilers end the
New York Islanders' impressive
four year run as Cup champions by beating Isles' netminder
Billy Smith at the
38-second mark of the
second period of game five of the finals at
Northlands Coliseum on
May 19, 1984, leading the high flying Oilers to a
5-2 victory. (While the Oilers would go on to win
four more Cups over the next
six years, Linseman would not be a part of any of them as just a month after scoring that Cup-winning goal he was traded to the
Boston Bruins for
Mike Krushelnyski on
June 21, 1984.) Left wing
Harold "Gizzy" Hart helped the
WCHL Victoria Cougars to become the last
non-NHL team to win the Stanley Cup by beating legendary
Montreal Canadiens' goalie
Georges Vézina at
2:35 of the
second period in a
6-1 victory over the NHL champion Habs in a game played in
Victoria, B.C., on
March 30, 1925. (The next year the
NHL Montreal Maroons beat Victoria to win the Cup in the last challenge series with the WCHL champions before the Stanely Cup became the NHL's play off championship trophy in
1927.) Veteran left wing
Brenden Shanahan's Cup winner came at
Joe Louis Arena on
June 13, 2002, when he beat
Carolina Hurricanes' netminder
Arturs Irbe at
14:04 of the
second period of
game five of the finals (and added an
empty net goal at
19:15 of the
third period) to give his
Detroit Red Wings a 3-1 victory and both him and his club their
third title in
six years.
High -- and Low -- Stanley Cup leading goal scorers...
Reggie "The Rifle" Leach of the Philadelphia Flyers captured both the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP in the 1976 Stanley Cup playoffs (even though the Flyers lost to the Montreal Canadiens in the finals), and was also the post season's leading scorer with 24 points in 19 goals and 5 assists in 16 games. Leach's 19 goals that year still stands as the most collected by a leading scorer in the play-offs. (Edmonton's Jari Kurri also scored 19 goals in a playoff year when he notched 31 points (19-12) in 1985 but teammate Wayne Gretzky finished with a record 47 overall post season points on 17 goals and 30 assists for the Oilers.)
Three players tied for leading scorer in the 1929 Stanley Cup playoffs -- Butch Keeling of the New York Rangers, and Andy Blair and Ace Bailey of the Toronto Maple Leafs. All three of these marksmen did so with just three points each with Keeling and Blair both notching three goals and Bailey with a goal and two assists. Three points is the fewest to qualify for a leading scorer by an NHL player in the post season -- and Bailey's one goal also makes him the "lowest" scorer to accomplish the same feat. (Two other NHL'ers would later tie for leading scorer in the play-offs with just one goal but also had more points as Boston's Cooney Weiland (1-5) tied teammate Marty Barry (3-3) with six points overall in 1930, and Toronto's Charlie Conacher (1-4) tied fellow Leaf Busher Jackson (3-2) and the Montreal Maroons' Cy Wentworth (3-2) and Baldy Northcott (4-1) with five in 1935.
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