This has got to be the coolest thing in all of sports - The Stanley Cup Trophy.  No object is so intimately tied to those who seek it.  Legends and ghosts are carried with it everywhere it goes.  And it goes everywhere!  Each member of the winning team is permitted to take the trophy for a day or two - anywhere, no questions asked.  This cup has partied more than Lemmy from Motorhead!  Liquids of every variety have been dispensed from its brim... (and other liquids probably dispensed back into it).

One of the key Cup traditions is having the team names, including coaches and key staff, engraved on the cup's many rings. 


But after many dozen years of championships, you might wonder if the engraver ever makes a mistake.  Well...

"Engraving the Cup takes a steady hand"
http://www.sptimes.com/
"St. Jacques, who started engraving the league's trophies in 1988, is just the fourth engraver of the Cup and she has made only one mistake. She misspelled the name of Colorado's Adam Deadmarsh, but later fixed it - the only time a mistake has been corrected on the Cup."
...
"There are mistakes that have added to the charm of the Cup. Did you know that the BQSTQN BRUINS won the 1972 Cup? Or that the NEW YORK ILANDERS won the Cup in 1981? Or that Jacques Plante won five consecutive Cups in the late 1950's and his name is spelled differently each time?"

My high school track coach had a talent of spelling my name differently - one day it was three different ways on the SAME SHEET OF PAPER.

Just who gets on the cup?  Well, there's not just a space limit, there are conventions and rules.

"First, the winning team sends a list of names to go on the Cup to the NHL, which must approve the list according to a strict set of qualifying rules. For example, former Oilers owner Peter Pocklington once sneaked his father's name on the list and it made it to the Cup. Later, the name was covered with a series of X's because you can't erase an engravement."



It's a tough gig, with a lot of responsibility.  But I think we've got the right lady on the job.

""It will take 10 hours over four or so days," St. Jacques said. "You just can't engrave it all in one stretch. I think I would go crazy. You sit there and after a while, you start thinking about what you're doing and you start worrying about a mistake and then it gets too much. That's when I walk away. I might go away for an hour or I might go back the next day. It sounds (tedious), but it's a great honor. I love doing it and hope to do it the rest of my life. After all, it's the Stanley Cup.""