Vegas Golden Knights
Vegas Golden Knights center Nicolas Roy and his girlfriend Laurie Pepin pose with the Stanley Cup in Amos, Quebec on July 8, 2023 during Roy’s day with the Stanley Cup.
Thursday, July 13, 2023 | 2 a.m.
Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Alex Pietrangelo, his wife Jayne, and their four children Evelyn, Oliver, Theodore and Julia Grace, pose with the Stanley Cup at Boone Valley Golf Club in Augusta, Mo., on July 10, 2023.
The amount of frequent flier miles Philip Pritchard accumulates during the summer has to be high.
Pritchard is the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Keeper of the Stanley Cup. He is the one that travels with the Cup for important gatherings, like media tours during the Stanley Cup Playoffs, or presenting it to the Vegas Golden Knights after winning it one month ago to the day.
But Pritchard also has another important task. During the offseason, he travels across the globe with the Stanley Cup in tow, so the players, coaches, management and staff with that year’s Stanley Cup champions can have a personal day with the NHL’s coveted prize.
The Golden Knights are the latest team to take part in this tradition, which dates to 1995.
The New Jersey Devils were the first team to have their day with the Cup. Each player, coach and executive that played a part in the team winning the championship gets to spend a day with the Cup.
Players generally will return to their hometowns, where parades will be had. Friends and family will gather to celebrate the year that was with that player.
Vegas center Nicolas Roy was the first to get his day with the Cup on Saturday. Roy returned to his hometown to do what has become the norm with the Cup: There’s a celebration with family and friends, and then there is the tradition of putting whatever food or drink in the Cup’s upper bowl and eating or drinking out of the 35-pound trophy.
On Monday, Golden Knights defenseman Alex Pietrangelo got his second day with the Cup. Pietrangelo, the captain of the St. Louis Blues when they won their first title in 2019, returned to St. Louis with his wife Jayne and their four children. The festivities included a round of golf at Bonnie Valley Golf Club, a trolley ride, and a family dinner.
“I said to [Jayne] I have a feeling we’re going to win a Cup in Vegas, and it’s nice you can get that done in three years,” Pietrangelo told NHL.com on Monday. “I think we’ve got a chance to win another one at least. It’s not like we’re done.”
For Misha Donskov, an assistant coach with the Knights, Tuesday was his day with the Cup in Columbus, Ohio. He took the Cup to OhioHealth Chiller Ice Rink, a hotbed for youth hockey in Columbus. The Golden Knights announced July 2 that Donskov was leaving the organization.
The festivities will continue throughout the summer. Today, coach Bruce Cassidy will be in Milton, Mass. — a suburb of Boston — to have his day with the Cup, as well as to launch the Cassidy Murray Foundation.
Cassidy Murray, a 13-year-old girl who was killed in a boating accident in Aruba in 2022, was best friends with Bruce Cassidy’s daughter, Shannon.
The Golden Knights’ coach, his wife, Julie, son Cole and Shannon will be there to help launch the foundation with Cassidy’s parents, Linda and Dave.
The Cassidy Murray Foundation aims to help families who are plunged into grief after a tragic loss, according to the group’s website. The foundation hopes to increase access to mental health resources including trauma and grief therapy and will also work to expand educational opportunities for young people.
“Julie and I marvel at Linda and Dave’s commitment to helping others despite a crushing grief that few of us can even imagine,” Cassidy said. “We cannot think of a better way to honor this beautiful girl and her parents’ noble commitment to others than by coming to Boston to bring attention to the foundation in her name.”
Golden Knights center Jack Eichel is set to have his day on Friday at his home in another Boston suburb, North Chelmsford, Mass. Eichel’s father, Bob Eichel, told the Boston Herald that part of the plan was for the Golden Knights star to take the famed trophy to Skate 3 in nearby Tyngsboro, Mass. “It’s where he grew up skating. He still skates there. He played a lot of hockey games there,” Bob Eichel told the newspaper.
Vegas general manager Kelly McCrimmon didn’t have much time to celebrate in the immediate aftermath of the Golden Knights’ series-clinching Game 5 victory June 13 against the Florida Panthers. He and his staff were preparing for the NHL Draft and free agency just days after winning.
His time to reflect on everything will come soon enough. Winnipeg’s CTV News reports the trophy will make its way to Brandon, Manitoba, on July 21. There, McCrimmon will take it to the Keystone Centre, home of the Brandon Wheat Kings, a team McCrimmon once coached and oversaw as general manager.
“There will be time this summer to have a beer and a cigar on the deck, where you just feel good about what happened, and have your day with the Cup,” McCrimmon said. “That (day) will be important, and seeing my parents, those types of things.”
CTV News also reported that Brett Howden would have his day with the Cup July 23 in Oakbank, Manitoba, where the festivities will include a parade featuring the Vegas left-winger and the Cup.
Beyond that, neither the Golden Knights nor the NHL has released a formal itinerary for the Cup.
The Toronto-based Hockey Hall of Fame and the NHL work together to create a schedule that’s geographically feasible for the Stanley Cup’s summer travels. The winning team has generally had the Cup for 100 days before it goes back to the Hall of Fame. That 100-day period ends this year on Sept. 21.
This year’s tradition is much different than in years’ past. The Golden Knights are the first team to have their engraving on the Stanley Cup prior to having their days with the trophy. The engraving would usually start around training camp and be ready for the team’s home opener, where they raise the Stanley Cup banner with the trophy front and center.
The Golden Knights will do just that Oct. 10 against the Seattle Kraken.
But each time Pritchard takes the Stanley Cup out of its case this summer, those having their day with the trophy will immediately look for their name and the other 51 names on the Cup’s engraving marking Vegas’ championship. It’s a tradition Prtichard said he would like to see continue.
Danny Webster can be reached at 702-259-8814 or [email protected]. Follow Danny on Twitter at twitter.com/DannyWebster21.
