How would you spend a day with the Stanley Cup? Hurricanes gleefully find a way.

Chip Alexander, The News & Observer (Raleigh) on Aug 1, 2026

Published in Hockey

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RALEIGH, N.C. — What would you do if you had the Stanley Cup as a personal plaything for a day?

That’s a perk Stanley Cup winners have, and another honored hockey tradition. Take it where you want and use it as you want, albeit with Philip Pritchard, the official “keeper of the Cup” along to make sure it isn’t, you know, desecrated and remains in one piece.

Drink out of it, eat out of it, stick babies in it, strap it into the front seat of a car, put a life-jacket around it while gliding out on the water … it’s all fair game,

The Carolina Hurricanes have had their fun with the Cup since captain Jordan Staal first lifted it in triumph in Las Vegas. Since polishing off the Vegas Golden Knights last month in the Cup Final, the Canes and the Cup have been on the move.

There was a quick golf trip to the North Carolina mountains — just the team and the Cup. Later came the parade and wild extravaganza in downtown Raleigh, with 200,000 on hand to join the overflow party and Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour convinced to go bare-chested and lift the Cup again.

Brind’Amour had the shirt back on a few days later when he, Staal and Jordan Martinook took the Cup to the N.C. Legislature to be honored by the state’s lawmakers.

But each player has his own day to show off the Cup. Staff members, too. It gets passed around.

For forward Will Carrier, who won a Cup with Vegas in 2023, that meant a second time around in his hometown of Quebec. Carrier paused at a lemonade stand being run by two young girls, making a purchase, before taking the Cup to Éperviers Park in L’Île-Perrot to share it with local kids.

Heading overseas, the Cup had two stops to make in Denmark, where goalie Frederik Andersen took it to Legoland and forward Nikolaj Ehlers later seat-belted it the passenger seat of his canary-yellow Lamborghini convertible for a cruise.

Staal picked out Andersen as the first teammate to get the Cup during the on-ice celebration at T-Mobile Arena. The veteran, who won 13 games in the playoff run, later signed a free-agent contract with the Edmonton Oilers but will forever have his name on the Cup with the Canes.

Legoland Billund Resort is next to the original Lego factory in Billund, Denmark, and Andersen and his family had a fun day before returning to his hometown of Herning. A longtime Lego enthusiast, Andersen has had various Lego characters on his goalie masks during his career.

Ehlers rode through the streets of Aalborg, Denmark, with the Cup before a big celebration at Sparekassen Danmark Arena.

Since winning the Cup, few players have seemed to be more gleeful than Sebastian Aho. Photos of Aho and the Cup have flooded social media, with the Canes center getting a thunderous ovation while making an appearance at the Qstock Music Festival last week in Oulu, Finland.

Aho, carrying out the Cup on stage, was greeted like a rock star by the thousands of roaring fans and did a little dance to the music. He posed for photos, including one with an old Hurricanes teammate, Teuvo Teravainen, as the two Finns raised the Cup.

In a much quieter moment at his parents home, Aho enjoyed eating his mom’s soup from the Cup — actually from a bowl placed in the top of the Cup. Salmon soup, apparently, but from his mom’s recipe.

Jesperi Kotkaniemi did not get in a playoff game for the Canes this year but the forward has his name on the Cup and had a day with it in his hometown of Pori, Finland.

Kotkaniemi took the Cup to his former elementary school in Pori and Enersense Arena, where he once starred as a junior. Later, he took a spin around a lake in a Sea-Doo jetski, both the player and Cup in the life jackets as Pritchard watched from dry land.

So it went. Some of the “days” have been low-key. Defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere, for example, celebrated with friends and family. Forward Jackson Blake took the Cup on Thursday to his hometown of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, to share with fans.

Forward Eric Robinson will carry the Cup to Gaudreau Rink at Hollydell Ice Arena in Sewell, New Jersey, to help honor his childhood friends, the late Johnny and Matt Gaudreau. That should be emotional scene.

The NHL does not allow the Cup to be carried to Russia, so Andrei Svechnikov, Alexander Nikishin and Pyotr Kochetkov will have to make other plans.

The “Day with the Cup” tradition began in 1995 with the New Jersey Devils. If Pritchard isn’t with the Cup, there’s another representative from the Hockey Hall of Fame to be the travel companion and keep an eye on things.

Brind’Amour, the team captain when the Canes won the 2006 Cup, took it home with him late that night after the final game. He set it up in his kids’ bedroom for them to see when they woke up, sun shining on silver.

Crazy things have been known to happen. The Dallas Stars had a pool party in 1999 and someone had the idea to throw the Cup off a deck down into the pool. The problem: it missed the pool.

Oops. At least that’s part of Stanley Cup lore.