NHL’s Stanley Cup tours Raleigh as Canes seek to bring it home. Here’s more on the trophy

The optimist will say the Carolina Hurricanes are only nine wins away from hoisting the Stanley Cup for the second time.

The pessimist will say the Canes have only won seven games, there are still so many more to win.

The superstitious hockey realist will say Carolina and second-round foe New Jersey are “0-0, what happened in the past is over and we’re not looking beyond our next game.”

All three subsets of fans, players, coaches and support staff will agree, however, the trophy the teams are chasing is pretty darn cool.

The Stanley Cup made a tour of Raleigh on Wednesday, including a stop at The News & Observer, one day after the Hurricanes took a commanding 3-1 series lead over the Devils in the teams’ second-round NHL playoff series.

Of course, the Stanley Cup doesn’t travel alone. Everywhere the Cup travels — it’s on the road more than 300 days a year — an official “Keeper of the Cup” is tagging along. This week, that mantle belongs to Howie Borrow, a Parry Sound, Ontario native who has been traveling with the Stanley Cup and other NHL trophies for 13 years. Barrow estimates he’s on the road with the cup about 150 days each year.

Here’s more about the trophy many have called the “best trophy in sports,” though that moniker is often — and widely — debated.

Why is it called the Stanley Cup?

It’s not. Sort of.

Seriously, the official, original name of the trophy is the “Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup,” commissioned and first presented by Frederick Arthur Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby known as Lord Stanley of Preston. He lived in Ottawa, and was the sixth governor-general of Canada. During a trip to England, he purchased the cup, which had been created in the 1850s. In 1892, he donated the cup to be used as a trophy for “the championship hockey club of the Dominion of Canada” — his children’s amateur league.

The cup officially became a symbol of professional hockey supremacy in 1910, when it was acquired by the National Hockey Association, and since 1926, NHL teams have been the sole contenders for the trophy, which has, of course, officially adopted the “Stanley Cup” name over the years.

How many names are engraved on the Stanley Cup?

The Stanley Cup is the only professional sports trophy on which the name of every member of the winning team is hand-stamped onto rings, known as bands. The names on the Cup are not just players. Coaches, team management and ownership get to decide who officially become part of hockey history.

As such, a ceremony takes place every 13 years at the Hockey Hall of Fame to retire one of the bands and set a new one.

Following the 2021-22 season:

• 3,489 names have been engraved on the Stanley Cup.

• A total of 1,477 players have won the Stanley Cup.

• Of those players, 867 have won it once, while 610 have won it two or more times.

Stanley Cup by the Numbers

• The Montreal Canadiens have won the Stanley Cup the most of any team, prevailing 24 times, followed by the Toronto Maple Leafs with 13 and Detroit Red Wings with 10.

• Hockey Hall of Famer Henri Richard appears the most of any player, winning 11 times with the Canadiens, followed by Jean Beliveau and Yvan Cournoyer (10), also with the Canadiens.

• Beliveau’s names appears an additional 7 times as a vice president with the Canadiens, making him the record holder for most times his name appears on the Cup with 17.

• The Hurricanes have won it once, in 2006, and have been to the final series one other time, in 2002.

How many Stanley Cups are there?

Wait, there’s more than one?

Yes. There are technically three. The original bowl purchased by Frederick Arthur Stanley (remember him?) is on permanent display at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

And if you go to the hall of fame, you’ll probably also see a full-size replica of the “presentation” trophy — the actual, official trophy you see on TV, and the one that visited Raleigh on Wednesday.

The “presentation” trophy travels to players’ hometowns or special sites following a victory. It’s the one that has had myriad imperfections (most of this have been smoothed over by expert metal workers in Montreal), and the one that maintains any and all engraving mistakes.

The replica most often on display at the hall of fame has been “fixed,” meaning any engraving mistakes are repaired.

How much does the Stanley Cup weigh?

Made of silver and nickel alloy, the Stanley Cup is 35¼ inches tall and weighs about 37 pounds. Players who have had the chance to lift it for the first time often remark how much heavier it is than they thought.

That said, anyone lifting it in celebration likely doesn’t care how much it weighs.

Just … don’t drop it.