Oh the places you’ll go: Predicting what the Blues do with the Stanley Cup
By C.L. Kohuss
Now that the St. Louis Blues are champions—a first in franchise history—what likely happens to the Cup on this sure-to-be costly ride through the offseason?
From parading through strip clubs and being manhandled for months by Alex Ovechkin, to being in the shower with God knows who and then left on the side of the road, there is no other trophy in sports that has as sordid and seedy a lifelong story as the Stanley Cup. He’s been everywhere and probably seen far too much.
He’s also been handled uh, roughly.
After the Dallas Stars won the rights to Stanley in ’99, Guy Carbonneau went to Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul’s house, promptly clamored up to the balcony, then chucked the Cup over the railing and into the swimming pool below.
Or at least, he tried. Instead, it dinged off the concrete and sank to the bottom. As Paul told Loudwire in 2016:
“The Cup keeper … he says, “You cannot do that—that’s the Stanley Cup! and we’re like, ‘We just f***ing did it, dude!'”
So with the St. Louis Blues now newly minted as champs, it got us to wondering: what, then, will happen to the poor Cup this time around? If the Blues are as rough off the ice as they are on it, we expect paramedics and concussion protocol to be on standby at all times.
1. Ryan O’Reilly says, “Stanley, take the wheel!”
We don’t yet know when Conn Smythe winner and Buffalo Sabres castaway Ryan O’Reilly will get his day with the 30-odd pounds of awesome, but if we were laying money down, here’s how we figure the 24 hours will go:
Cup Keeper: Alright Ryan, your time to shine buddy.
O’Reilly: Oh hells yeah. First stop, Tim Horton’s whoooooooo!
Cup Keeper: Ryan, I don’t think —
O’Reilly: To the arch, baby!! Whoooo!!!!
Cup Keeper: I thought we were going to Tim Horton’s?!
O’Reilly starts at a full-speed run to his truck with the Cup, then locks out the Cup Keeper as he straps Stanley into the driver’s seat and takes off blindly pushing the pedals with his meaty hands going 90 miles per hour towards Washington Avenue.
The next day both are found passed out drunk in a clearing next to the Gateway, which oddly needs repairs because there’s suddenly a massive dent in it. Stanley is covered in inappropriate sharpie markings and keeps saying, “Wha’? Wha’ happened bro?”
O’Reilly later blames the entire mishap on Jack Eichel, probably.