Planes, trains, autos: Cup keeper talks Knights summer tour

The Golden Knights achieved a Stanley Cup first during their summer tour with hockey’s most famous trophy.

The Cup visited 31 countries during its travels around the globe. Teddy Blueger’s day with it was the first time it was in Latvia with a player.

Along for the ride was Phil Pritchard, the vice president of the Hockey Hall of Fame and better known as the “Keeper of the Cup.” He’s been one of the silver chalice’s chief escorts since it became tradition in 1995 for it to spend a day each offseason with the member of the winning team.

That honor went to the Knights this season. Many players on the team described it as one of the best days of their lives. And seeing the joy on everyone’s faces when he brings the Cup to town is something that still excites Pritchard to this day.

“The team is much bigger than on the ice,” Pritchard said. “It’s the mom and dads. It’s the grandparents. It’s the guy at the pizza store that made him his pizza. Whatever it might be, they get to bring it home and say thank you. All of those people are an important part of this Vegas Golden Knight Stanley Cup championship. The players don’t forget that.”

Crazy schedule

Pritchard and the Hockey Hall of Fame need to scramble fast whenever the Cup is won.

There were 100 days between the Knights’ championship-clinching victory against the Florida Panthers on June 13 and the first practice of training camp Sept. 21. That’s not a lot of time to coordinate a complicated schedule of visits. The Knights also cut into that time by being the first team to have their names engraved on their trophy prior to getting their days with it. The process takes about 10 days.

“It seemed to me for the players when they had their Cup day, part of what would make it cool is they could put their finger on their name, right?” general manager Kelly McCrimmon said. “It made it more meaningful, in my opinion.”

The Knights players, coaching staff and owner Bill Foley brought the Cup to 12 U.S. states, seven Canadian provinces and two European countries, Sweden and Latvia. Pritchard and the rest of his team not only had to figure out the easiest way to get from place to place, they had to work around conflicts like family vacations or weddings.

Center Chandler Stephenson and defenseman Shea Theodore, for instance, got married over the summer. In both cases, the wedding came before the Cup day.

“It was busy,” Theodore said. “There’s a lot of planning. Obviously, I didn’t really do much of it. Either one. My wife did a great job planning everything.”

Pritchard said he had an idea by the end of June what the July travel schedule would be like. From there, he knew about two to two-and-a-half weeks in advance where the Cup needed to go. Its first trip was to see center Nicolas Roy in Quebec on July 8. Its last with a player was with defenseman Alec Martinez in Michigan on Sept. 2.

The Cup took just about every mode of transportation possible to reach each destination on time. “Planes, trains and automobiles,” as Pritchard put it. Flights and rental cars kept the trophy moving, plus it hopped on a train in Sweden for center William Karlsson’s day.

Plenty of players took the Cup out on a boat as well, like Stephenson, Martinez and left wing Reilly Smith. (Under close supervision, of course.)

The trophy didn’t get many breaks. Even when it went to Europe, there was only one travel day between goaltender Adin Hill’s visit in Alberta on Aug. 9 and Blueger’s in Latvia on Aug. 11. Karlsson got it the day after Blueger. The Cup only had 48 hours to rest from its trip to Sweden before it was with Smith in Nova Scotia.

“If they only get 100 days, we’ve got to maximize every minute we can,” Pritchard said.

Special experiences

A typical Cup day begins whenever Pritchard is able to arrive from his previous stop. He said that’s often in the morning between 10 and 11:30 a.m., and he stays until midnight at the latest. Then, he’s on to the next location. The Cup is cleaned and sanitized between visits so it shows up shiny.

Every experience is different. Most of the Knights went to a rink they grew up by to share it with kids, old coaches and the community. Others made visits to local businesses, first responders or children’s hospitals.

A few of the Knights that had been through the experience before had a more relaxing time. Defenseman Alex Pietrangelo said his second day with the Cup was “a little bit quieter” after previously winning it with the 2019 St. Louis Blues.

Martinez said his third visit with the trophy was a lot different as well. The first two times he won it in 2012 and 2014, he was 24- and 26-years-old. He’s 36 now. Instead of just him and all his friends hanging out like they did the first time, there were wives, girlfriends and even kids — who got to put Coca-Cola in the Cup — added to the mix for the third.

“There’s a bit of an evolution, I would call it,” said Martinez, who himself got married since scoring the championship-clinching goal for the Los Angeles Kings in 2014. “Myself and all my buddies are at different stages in our lives.”

Seeing the unique ways everyone chooses to celebrate is part of what makes every Cup day special to Pritchard. Every hockey player has a support system that helped turn them into a champion. Their day with the trophy is a chance to give back.

Pritchard saw the Knights again leading up to the season. He brought the Cup to their championship ring ceremony, their visit to the Raiders game against the Packers on “Monday Night Football” and the team’s banner raising at T-Mobile Arena before its season opener against the Seattle Kraken.

That gave the Knights one last opportunity to celebrate with the trophy they worked so hard to win. They can only hope they see Pritchard again this summer, because that means they’ve earned another unforgettable day with hockey’s ultimate prize.

“People kind of compare it to planning a wedding date or stuff like that,” Pritchard said. “And I heard a good line once. It said ‘There’s lots of people that get married, but there’s only a few that have won the Stanley Cup.’”

Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.