25 most insane things people have ever done with the Stanley Cup

17. Ottawa tries punting Cup over canal

Similar to the previous story, this story has been hotly contested over the years. Rumor has it that members of the Ottawa Silver Seven left a banquet with a much smaller version of the Cup in 1905.

On their way home, they decided to find out if they could punt the Cup over Ottawa’s famous Rideau Canal. Parts of the story check out: It was winter, so the Cup would be easily retrievable on the frozen canal. Several of the Silver Seven members were also rugby players, so this isn’t outside the realm of what they could do.

Once again, according to Bill Westwick, this story was highly exaggerated:

"A group of players — including one who had decided to take the Cup home — walked away from the banquet together and followed a shortcut off the old Canal Street to a route that included a fence. One of them tossed the Cup over. It was briefly left to sit where it had landed, and when players returned for it, “one of the stars of the club, the late Alf Smith, took a playful soccer kick at it.”"

While that story sounds believable, it’s also exactly what I would say if I was accused of drop-kicking the Stanley Cup. Much like when you are a child and explaining to your parents why your younger sibling is crying, people tend to soften some stories for their own sake.

We’ll never know exactly what happened to the Cup that night, but it’s safe to say it was probably somewhere in between “playfully soccer kicking” and full blown rugby punting the thing over a river.