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Stanley Cup Gets Damaged During Florida Panthers Celebrations
Stanley Cup Gets Damaged During Florida Panthers Celebrations
Defending the Stanley Cup is even better than first getting your hands on it. That is exactly what happened last night in South Florida. The Panthers took down the Edmonton Oilers for the second straight year, this time in six games. However, once Gary Bettman handed Lord Stanley out, the Cats did not do a great job of “defending” it.
As a matter of fact, they did not even make it to the locker room before sport’s greatest trophy had some visible wear and tear on it. Check it out below:
You’d have to think someone was a little too excited to get their hands on it. Any guesses? How about Matthew Tkachuk? Or first-timers Seth Jones and Nate Schmidt? Maybe Brad Marchand, after needing to wait 14 years for it? You can’t even use the booze excuse, so it had to be someone’s iron grip.
The Cup Is Slippery
If you paid attention to last year’s final, the Panthers had a bit of a trend for their celebration. After taking it off the ice, the players and staff would celebrate in the locker room. However, not much later, they usually would be on the road to a South Florida staple: The Elbo Room. Local laws have it that the party does not really ever end when you’re in the Sunshine State. It’s hard not to go all out when you’re in a place like Fort Lauderdale. Look and see how early the place was packed this morning. You can imagine that the players probably did not sleep either:
Last year definitely may have caught people off guard. However, the Panthers are a staple. Now they have actual fans too (you can call them bandwagons if it helps you sleep at night). Merch is flying off the shelves, and now there is a legit fan base that can celebrate these guys. It just so happens that the Elbo Room is twice as packed as it was last year, the morning after.
If you told me last year that Florida would repeat, I would not have been very surprised. The system constructed by Bill Zito and Paul Maurice is laser sharp. They absolutely nailed the deadline. Their roster has a lot of strengths, and was built incredibly, but the RAT in their DNA is unbelievable. You can’t point to a team that loves getting dirty more than these guys. And as a result, they can put some beer (or whatever they want) into the Stanley Cup. You all better get comfortable, because they might not be going anywhere.
This team banging up the Stanley Cup is so on cue. They embody playoff hockey, and no one should be upset if they gave the Cup a little beauty mark. Would you expect them to do anything differently?
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