The Stanley Cup has a rich history of engraving misspelled names
Come on, guys.
Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports
The NHL is the only one of America’s major sports that engraves the name of each player on each championship team onto its trophy. This has resulted in several mistakes over the years.
People and teams’ names are spelled wrong on the Stanley Cup -- like, a lot. And sometimes they don’t even fix the mistakes!
Some of the errors are understandable, like switching the t and the s in “Kris Versteeg.” Some, like spelling “Ted Kennedy” with two y’s, are just sloppy.
Here are some of the weirdest mistakes to grace the trophy:
- Jacques Plante won the Stanley Cup in five consecutive years and has his name spelled on the cup FIVE different ways. One time they just spelled his name “J. Plante” and then left it.
- The weirdest one is that they spelled Boston, “BQSTQN,” in 1972, which is thoroughly inexplicable. Maybe the person carving the names was vehemently anti-Bruins and used this opportunity to exact his or her revenge? I ... I don’t really have an explanation for this.
- Maple Leafs was once spelled “Maple Leaes,” maybe because the engraver was struggling with the fact that “Leafs” isn’t a real word.
- The engravers once spelled Islanders, “Ilanders,” which is completely fine because that’s actually how the word sounds.
Maybe now we know why other leagues don’t do this.
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