Lord Stanley gets a kick how family Cup gets knocked around

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As the Stanley Cup has been dropped, dented, dunked in the ocean and gone everywhere from a strip bar to the supper table as a serving dish, many have fretted “what would Lord Stanley say?”

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“I think it’s very cool,” said 26-year-old Edward Stanley, great-great-great grandson of the trophy’s donator, after seeing the Cup for the first time in Toronto earlier this month at the Hockey Hall of Fame.

“I really enjoyed hearing the stories. It’s part of its history. I know the (presentation Cup) has been around awhile and from being hoisted, the bowl is getting out of shape. Maybe it’s been a bit too loved — or under-loved — but if you had a new trophy and pretended it was the real one, you’d have a lot of sad people who’d feel one step away from that history.

“Even the people on it whose names have a typo, they feel they’re part of that past rather than it being a disappointment. The love is in the heritage and how hard it’s competed for. It’s great everyone gets a day with the Cup and how much young Canadians have dreamt of that. Clearly you don’t want it spending too much time around salt water (where the 2024 champion Florida Panthers took it and even used the bowl for live bait on a fishing excursion), but as long it survives to tell the tale.

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“I didn’t know there was a minder from the Hall who went with the Cup. They seem remarkably relaxed from what I’ve seen and heard of what goes on with it.”

A refresher on Cup lore: The oldest trophy competed for by pro athletes in North America was created by Frederick Arthur, Lord Stanley of Preston, the Governor General of Canada, in 1893. Purchased for 10 guineas ($50) at the urging of daughter Isobel, who took up the sport in wintry Ottawa, it went to the amateur champions of the Dominion, coming under full National Hockey League control in 1926-27.

Lord Stanley was the 16th Earl of Derby, Edward is heir apparent as the 20th from his father. Their estate, including grand Knowsley Hall, the Stanleys’ ancestral home, is just outside Liverpool, though the family lives in a smaller abode.

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His first Toronto trip came about through Edward’s strong sense of obligation to see the family trophy and the Hall itself. Earlier plans conflicted with his university studies, as well as helping run the family estate — which includes a safari park, horse breeding and a new job at BC Partners, a global private equity fund.

He was getting subtle pressure from a Canadian boss at BC to make this summer’s puck pilgrimage and perhaps see a playoff game next year.

In April 2023, when Phil Pritchard — the ‘Keeper of the Cup’ — and HHOF board chair Lanny McDonald brought the trophy to England as part of the world championships, the British Ice Hockey Federation unsuccessfully tried to have Edward attend a gala dinner.

But he created a video for the event with a promise to come to the Hall the whenever travel took him to Toronto.

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A two-hour tour was arranged for Stanley and his partner, Victoria Jooris, hosted by Miragh Bitove, a member of the archival, artifacts and records team at the Hall. They were joined by Hall curator Kevin Shea, who had written Lord Stanley: The Man Behind the Cup in 2006 and interviewed Edward’s father for the book’s foreword.

The group had the run of the museum an hour before the public was admitted, Edward getting a behind-the-scenes look at the original bowl and the old bands, then stepping into modern times, taking shots on a simulated goalie and putting on the gear himself.

The Belgian-born Jooris was thrilled to see a sweater from her country in the World of Hockey zone and the couple stayed to watch fans stream in to pose with the Cup in the Great Hall and see the exhibits.

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“It was very sad I hadn’t been before,” Stanley told the Sun. “It was great to see the actual presentation bowl without the plinth. It actually looks rather sheepish next to the big silver polished one, but you can sense the experience on the older, slightly crooked Cup.

“I really enjoyed seeing all the players names, even the typos.”

Edward noted his family crest, an eagle bearing an infant, that dates to the 1400s.

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“I have to say the whole Hall of Fame was much more impressive than I’d anticipated. I thought it would be one or two rooms, which they’d done nicely with the (stained glass Great Hall) and the original (Bank of Montreal) vault. I liked the juxtaposition and all the fun elements of the museum.

“I was staggered by the numbers who attend each year. I don’t think we really have a comparable museum to the Premier League (football) that would draw anything close, in terms of the massive spikes you get when there’s a (baseball or hockey game played next door).”

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Very few visitors to Stanley’s estate from North America make the Cup connection, though after his service as Governor General, the people of Canada gifted Lord Stanley a 46-metre log cabin. Shipped and re-assembled in the woods near the main Hall, it was named Potato Pie House and is used by many British TV shows, such as the soap Hollyoaks, to depict a remote getaway.

Edward is active in the safari park on the estate’s converted traditional farmlands. The family are among Europe’s most successful breeders of white rhinos, with the goal of sending them back to the wild, self-sufficient in food to stay further away from humans — and poachers.

Knowsley Hall is open for tours and used as a wedding/entertainment venue, while three of England’s four open golf courses are within 15 miles. The horse breeding aspect has produced a few English Derby winners — the British equivalent of the Kentucky Derby — started by the Edward’s family.

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“That’s more achievable for us than winning the Stanley Cup,” he quipped, “though it’s not a perennial trophy, they make a new one each year.”

Whenever on business overseas, Edward doesn’t flaunt his hockey connection, though that couldn’t be helped five years ago at a conference in Las Vegas.

“I just wanted to walk around the casino floor, but got stopped because I looked younger than 21. A security person behind the tables grabbed me and asked for ID. He took a look then came out, kind of embarrassed, because my ID says ‘Lord Stanley.’

“He said ‘like the Cup?’ It was even more amusing because he had a (Golden Knights) jersey on and asked for a picture with me. The name comes up now and then, as when I was in university and when I’m in the U.S.

“But when people in the U.K. asked me why I was going to Toronto this year, I replied ‘to see our family trophy,’ and boom, right away they got it.”

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X: @sunhornby

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