Cup commeth over

Nick Christensen

Tuesday, March 9, 2004 | 10:25 a.m.

In most sports, the championship team is awarded a trophy.

In hockey, the winner is bestowed a legend.

The Stanley Cup, and all the history behind it, made an appearance in Las Vegas Monday afternoon as part of an NHL program to raise money for charity. Fans at the Fremont Street Experience braved lines more than an hour long to have their picture taken with the huge cup, and get a chance to feel the aura that surrounds it.

Hockey's greatest prize is, after all, the only trophy of the four big sports to have its own directory on the Yahoo search engine, the only of the four majors to have a listing of its urban legends -- all of them true -- on the popular myth-debunking website Snopes.com, and the only of the four majors that is kept in circulation, instead of making a new one every year as in other sports.

The cup was on the second stop of a five-city tour put on by the NHL to raise awareness in non-NHL cities, and to get donations for Hockey Fights Cancer, a cancer research program. And, fans went "cup crazy" all day, said Mike Bolt, one of two Cup Keepers who try to ward off the trouble that helped make the cup's travels so infamous.

"We had a woman come up here, she was shaking, she was so excited to see the Stanley Cup. Another person said he had to come all the way to Las Vegas to see the Stanley Cup," Bolt said. "We've been here a couple times for private events, but this is our first public appearance, and it's been a great success. It'd be nice if we could stick around longer and get more people to see the cup, but that's what keeps it special, too."

Two Las Vegas Wranglers, Jonathan Shockey and Kevin O'Flaherty, were meeting fans and signing autographs at Fremont Street during the appearance. Coincidentally, the Double-A ECHL's championship trophy, the Kelly Cup, is not stopping in Las Vegas on its 10 city 2004 tour.

But the Kelly Cup was never at the bottom of either Mario Lemieux's or Patrick Roy's swimming pool, nor was it on stage at a New York gentleman's club with Mark Messier.

"Real good of the NHL to decide to come to Vegas. It's a good opportunity for some people. It's not an NHL market," O'Flaherty, an ECHL rookie, said.

"It's the best trophy in all of sports. There's just something magnetic about it that no other trophy's got."

Shockey, who is on the Wranglers' injured list healing ligaments in his hand that were injured in a fight last month, referred to the cup on religious terms when asked about the first time he saw it.

"The first time I saw the Holy Grail, I was in Toronto," he said. "It's kind of like the ultimate goal, it's something sacred to all hockey players."

So sacred, most players won't even touch it until they are on a team that wins it. Bolt said that sometimes, even players that have won it will shy away from holding it after some time, for fear they might jinx another shot at a championship.

"One (Las Vegas Wrangler) said he is retiring at the end of the year, so obviously he isn't ever going to win the cup," Bolt said. "Some guys in the NHL definitely wouldn't go near it, because they are competing for it.

" Superstitions get a little blown out of proportion. I see parents telling their kids, 'Don't touch it! You'll never win it!' I can respect it to a point, but at the same time, it's a game, let's keep it fun. If you have a shot at really truly winning it, you respect that superstition."

The Wranglers' next game is Friday, in Bakersfield.