Trophy Tribulations : Sometimes, Winning an Award Can Be a Lot Easier Than Trying to Hold Onto It

We have your trophy and are holding it for ransom. If you ever want to see it again, send us the money now.

--The Kidnapers

Thieves broke into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto in December of 1968 and stole the Stanley Cup trophy.

“At that time security consisted of locking the door,” said Lefty Reid, the director and curator of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

The Cup was missing for three weeks, and National Hockey League officials feared that they would never see the Cup again.

After negotiations between police and the thieves, the Cup was returned, but no one was ever prosecuted for the crime. According to newspaper accounts, the policeman in charge of the case reportedly woke up one morning and found the Stanley Cup sitting in his driveway.

“That’s the public explanation,” said Reid, the Stanley Cup custodian. “But the truth of the matter is that the Cup had actually been sitting in the policeman’s basement for three days before. The negotiations were complicated, and we had to arrange for it to be found in his driveway.”

But the Hall has increased security, and the Cup hasn’t been stolen since.

Trophies often carry with them a history and tradition that makes them priceless. The Stanley Cup is just one of many testimonial trophies that have a colorful past. It’s not even the only trophy to ever have been stolen. Some go to great extremes to protect a trophy.

After the Chicago Bears won the Super Bowl last winter, a National Football League spokesman said that the team hired a Brinks Truck to transport the Vince Lombardi Trophy to Los Angeles for engraving.

It might have been overkill, considering that the sterling silver Lombardi Trophy, which was designed by Tiffany, is worth between $8,500-$11,000, depending upon the fluctuating price of silver.

Legend has it that the Borg-Warner Trophy, which is presented to the winner of the Indianapolis 500, was kidnaped from a hotel room in 1938 and held for ransom.

However, the trophy was returned to the same hotel room a few days later without any explanation or ransom being paid.

The Borg-Warner Trophy cost $10,000 when it was first made in 1936. Today, it’s insured for $100,000, but officials say that it couldn’t be replaced.

It is made from 80 pounds of sterling silver in a checkerboard pattern. The face of the winner of the race is engraved on the trophy each year.

Three years ago, the original solid gold World Cup soccer trophy, worth $47,000, was stolen from its bullet-proof, steel-lined case, which was built into a wall at the Brazilian Soccer Federation.

Police feared that the robbers wanted to melt down the 15-inch-high Cup and offered a $1,000 reward. However, it was later returned.

The Stanford Ax, which goes to the winner of the Stanford-Cal football game, was stolen in 1973 by a group of Stanford students posing as newspaper photographers.

The students, all of whom belonged to the same fraternity, called the Cal Ax Committee, which is in charge of protecting the trophy, and asked them to bring it to a press luncheon in Palo Alto for pictures.

When the Ax arrived, the Stanford students jumped the Cal Ax Committee members in the parking lot and made off with the Ax. It was hidden in the basement of a fraternity at Stanford for a week.

Ironically, Stanford won the game so the school got to keep the Ax. Stanford engineering students have built an armor-plated case which they claim will withstand a nuclear attack, to display the Ax in the years that Stanford has possession of it.

The Ax is handcuffed to an Ax Committee member when it is brought out for public display.

The Stanley Cup, which goes to the champion of the National Hockey League, is the oldest championship trophy in professional sports, and perhaps the most mistreated.

The NHL claims that the Cup is seven years older than the Davis Cup and one year older than the Temple Cup, which was the trophy which used to go to the baseball World Series winner until it was replaced by the World Series Trophy.

Lord Stanley of Preston, the Earl of Derby, who was Canada’s Governor General, bought the punch-bowl shaped trophy for 10 pounds, or $48.67, in 1893. It was to be awarded to the amateur hockey champion of Canada. Ironically, Lord Stanley left Canada and returned home to England and never saw it awarded. And, what’s more, he never even saw a hockey game.

The original Stanley Cup is on permanent display at the Hockey Hall of Fame. The one which players skate around the ice with after the final is a replica.

The Cup is insured for $50,000 (Canadian), but NHL officials say that they couldn’t replace it.

Until 1910 the Cup went to amateur teams in Canada. The National Hockey Assn., forerunner of the National Hockey League, had control over the Cup from 1910 until 1926, when the NHL took over the Cup.

The Stanley Cup has been abused by the teams which have won it.

In 1903, it was reportedly buried in a graveyard in Ottawa, Canada, during a victory celebration by members of the long-defunct Ottawa Silver Screen hockey team.

During another wild victory celebration, it was reportedly kicked into the Rideau Canal in Ottawa by Harry Smith of the Silver Screen.

The team members returned to the canal the next morning and found the Cup frozen in the ice.

In the 1920s, the Stanley Cup was supposedly left by the side of a highway when Montreal Canadien players, on their way to a victory party, stopped to fix a flat tire. They returned for it a few hours later after they realized it was missing.

And, the Cup was dropped from a car into a street during a victory parade after the Canadiens won it in 1924.

No wonder the Stanley Cup has so many dents in it.

The Stanley Cup may also be the world’s most sought after drinking mug.

After the Montreal Canadiens won their 23rd National Hockey League championship last month, they poured champagne and beer into Lord Stanley’s battered old Cup and passed it around so that players coaches and team executives could drink from it.

When the Edmonton Oilers won the Cup for the first time in 1984, they carried it to bars all around the city and fans were allowed to drink from it.

The winning team gets to keep the Cup for a couple of weeks after the final game of the season and it is then returned for cleaning and engraving.

Emery Air Cargo, which ships the Stanley Cup, has an advertisement which shows a picture of the Stanley Cup covered in brown wrapping paper ready to be moved. The slogan for the ad campaign is: “Who Carries Home The Stanley Cup Year After Year?”

When the Cup was on display at a hotel lobby in Calgary, Canada, during the 1986 finals, hundreds of fans made the pilgrimage to see the Cup.

The names of the members of the NHL championship team are engraved on silver bands on the base of the Cup. However, they will run out of room on the 100th anniversary of the Cup in 1993.

NHL officials have not said what they plan to do when they run out of space. However, Reid of the Hall of Fame has suggested that the old bands be retired to the Hall so that there will be room for more names.

Indianapolis 500 officials also ran into a similar problem this year with their Borg-Warner Trophy.

The trophy is 4-feet, 3-inches high. However, in order to create space for future winners of the race, a new base was added to the trophy.

The Borg-Warner Trophy is on display at the Speedway Museum. The winner of the race gets a plaque with the replica of his face on it.

Traditionally the trophy was placed on the back of the winning car after the race for photographs. However, when rear engine cars were first introduced, the Borg-Warner Trophy was placed on the back of the winning car and the heat from the engine was transfered up through the trophy and handlers got burned when they picked it up.

The America’s Cup, yacht racing’s biggest prize, is perhaps the oldest non-professional sports trophy.

The New York Yacht Club, a private club, had possession of the America’s Cup for 132 years. However, the Royal Perth Yacht Club won the sailing trophy in 1983.

The America’s Cup is actually an ugly silver pitcher, which looks as though it might have come from the treasure chest at Pirates of the Caribbean. It originally cost $500 but millions have been spent by yachtsmen trying to win it.

Before the Australians won the America’s Cup, it was housed in the trophy room at the New York Yacht Club. And the Cup was almost as big a secret as the Australian winged keel.

It was kept in a quarter-inch thick bomb-proof glass case and it was bolted to an oaken table. Visitors weren’t permitted into the private club unless they were accompanied by members.

Asked why the Cup was so heavily protected, Sohei Hohri, the club librarian once told a wire service: “Years ago the cup was uncovered and just sat on one of the tables. At a club reception, someone brushed against it and dislodged it. Measures were taken for better protection.”

After the Australians won the Cup in 1983, it was loaded into an armored car for the trip to Rhode Island, with Hohri following in a car.

When a reporter phoned Hohri recently to inquire about the Cup, he received an icy reaction and was told that any questions must be in writing.

Buddy Dyer, director of the First Interstate Bank Amateur Athletic Foundation, knows a thing or two about sports trophies.

Dyer is the curator of what may be the largest sports-trophy collections in the United States. The Foundation has replicas of most of the amateur and professional sports championship trophies.

Asked which is the most important trophy, he said, “The ones that come to mind are the Super Bowl Trophy, the Heisman and the World Series Trophy, which I think is one of the prettiest of all.”

Dyer said that the John Wooden Trophy, which is presented to the outstanding college basketball player, may be the most unique.

“It has five figures on it,” Dyer said, noting that most trophies only have one figure on them. “John Wooden felt that it should reflect the (team) nature of the game.”