Carrying it is their charge

The Stanley Cup inspires awe and honor. So it is with reverence that its NHL chaperons work their hands into white gloves to carry it, protect it, polish it, cradle it. The Cup is never without its keepers, who, by rotating the duty, go where it goes. To Samuel Pahlsson’s home in Sweden. To the beach at Huntington. To Cranbrook, Canada. Thousands of miles to cover this past summer, but there was little sleep for the keepers. When it was on the move, they either laid it in a big blue box to be checked in at the airport or secured the car seat belt around it as carefully as they would with a small child. And, at the end of each day, the keepers gently wiped away the kisses and fingerprints of those who had been roused by the mantra: If you see it, you will touch it. For in its five bands of silver live the names of hockey’s legends.