My Trophy Can Beat Up Your Trophy

Imagine seeing your first child born, running out into the hospital waiting room to pass out cigars, and discovering the rest of the world hates babies.

That's what it feels like to be a hockey fan at playoff time.

This week, my New Jersey Devils ended an improbable run to the Atlantic Division title on the last night of the regular season. Like any real fan would, I rocked my red-black-and-white Claude Lemieux jersey the next day, celebrating their achievement in preparation for a first-round series against the New York Rangers. In any other sport, this display of fanatic exuberance would have been met with high-fives, "attaboys," and words of encouragement for future success — but most of the non-hockey fans I bumped into gave me blank stares, half-smirks, and at least one guy saying, "Oh, did they ever settle that strike?"

We are the hockey fans. Lepers to the legitimate, creeps to the in-crowd. In the great cafeteria of sports, we sit at the table closest to the teacher's lounge; the one covered in old chewing gum and spilled chocolate milk where all the foreign kids converge at lunchtime. We're like a fourth-tier religion — even during our holiest annual celebration, all a non-believer can muster is, "Well, I'm not sure I understand, but happy whatever!"

Look, I get that hockey — especially in certain corners of the United States — isn't on par with baseball, basketball, football, golf, auto racing, poker, cage fighting, and dwarf tossing. I get that all this crowing about attendance being on the rise comes from the fact that tickets were slashed to dollar-store prices when they weren't being given away. And I'm fully aware that a sport played inside an arena is being carried by a network dedicated to Outdoor Life.

Denigrate us. Ignore us. It doesn't matter. We have something none of you will ever have: the coolest flippin' championship trophy in sports.

Look at her shine! The Stanley Cup is, like Jesus, made of magic. My trophy can beat up your trophy.

There's no way to explain the feeling you get when you're in the building and you see this thing carried out onto that little pedestal near center ice. (And by "little pedestal," I mean the stand, not Gary Bettman.) Fathers lift their children on their shoulders for a clear look at the chalice. More flash bulbs go off than during a Lindsay Lohan nip slip. You could be waaaay in the upper deck, like I was when the Devils won the Cup in Game 4 against Detroit in 1995, and still feel the gravity of the thing.

Remember the look everyone got in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" every time they'd see a mystical artifact, whether it was the little nugget at the beginning that set off the booby traps or the big enchilada at the end? Well, that's the look every fan within eye-shot gives the Stanley Cup. (It's also the reason the Blackhawks can't win the title until they change ownership, because Bill Wirtz's face will melt off like that German dude at the end of the movie as soon as he touches the Cup. Super-cool holy magic chalices really don't mix with greedy evil oppressors.)

The Stanley Cup is iconic, a symbol of history and the amazing fortitude it requires earning your place in that history. Yet after you win it, the Cup can become so many other things: a drinking buddy, a fellow vacationer, a dance partner, even a trough for a horse.

Can you say the same about this?

First off all, the thing looks as fragile as one of those crazy sugar castles they make on the Food Network chef cook-offs. They must require any team that wins the World Series to have a gallon of super-glue in the locker room in case David Wells sits on it by accident.

The design is all wrong. All of those pennants make the trophy look like something a high-school color guard might take home from a weekend competition. I get that the pennant is a symbol of baseball's postseason, and I see that we have an actual baseball represented on the trophy; but there's so much iconography missing from the sport. No bat? No glove? No syringe?

The trophy isn't even named for anyone, which is stunning when you consider every Hall of Famer in the last 30 years not named Ernie Banks has won the damn thing. Maybe they're just holding out for the Jeter Trophy...

Meanwhile, in the NBA:

This looks like something that should be revolving around the roof of a burger joint.

The Larry O'Brien Trophy (no, I wasn't aware it had a name either) is famous for two reasons:

1. Being featured in some pretty funny commercials over the last few seasons in which players interact with the trophy.

2. Being somewhere in the frame every time Michael Jordan was photographed following one of his championship victories. I actually created my own "Where's Waldo?" game with it.

The problem being, of course, that more people could probably identify Jordan's cigar than this anonymous trophy. That's because the trophy doesn't speak to this generation of NBA players or fans; I mean, there isn't a single diamond on it, nothing gold-plated seems to spin, and it's much too big to be a pimp cup.

FYI: If you squint hard enough, the O'Brien Trophy looks a little like a bust of John "Hot Plate" Williams.

And then there's this:

The Lombardi Trophy is really the only piece of championship hardware that comes close to the Stanley Cup in American sports. It's simple, it's classic, and it looks really good when hoisted into the air by anyone not wearing a New England Patriots uniform.

Really the only problem with it is that the football was made to be "in the kicking position" — and really, who personifies the blood and sweat of a championship season than an "idiot kicker?" (tm Peyton Manning).

But the Lombardi Trophy, the O'Brien Trophy, and the soon-to-be Jeter Trophy still can't compare to the Stanley Cup because, unlike hockey's greatest prize, they made new awards every season for the champions in each sport.

In football, basketball, and baseball, you keep the history you make — in hockey, you're simply a part of a greater history, etched in every name and team on that shining silver beauty.

Congrats to whoever gets to hoist it this season...

"Glow Picks" Update

I've now done nearly a month's worth of media for my book "Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History," appearing on radio stations across the country of all sizes and frequencies. I can't begin to tell you what an honor it's been to hear from readers that I've written something that's made them laugh and made them think. That's what I set out to write, and I'm glad I accomplished that mission.

Complaints? People think the BCS is too low on the list. I think I defend my decision well in the book, but to each his own. I've actually had pretty spirited debates on the air with some hosts and callers about the shootout in the NHL, which is fine: one man's excitement is another man's pathetic skills competition gimmick, which if replaced with something like "fastest skater" would reveal its utter absurdity as a manner to determine postseason participation.

I'm scheduled on 1570 AM in Green Bay next Thursday. I'm looking forward to it because I've been really getting fired up about my chapter on Warm-Weather Super Bowls.

Again, the book is in stores now and available on Amazon.com for a price that really isn't going to help me, but will help you, especially if you're looking for a Father's Day gift.

Thanks again for reading...

Greg Wyshynski is the Features Editor for SportsFan Magazine in Washington, DC, and the Senior Sports Editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. His book "Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History" will be published in spring 2006. His columns appear every Saturday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Greg at [email protected].