Precisely 3,542 names have been etched, ever, onto the Stanley Cup, a tradition that dates back to 1907. Each one commemorates not just a championship won but a lifetime of work and sacrifice, blood and sweat, tears and teeth spent getting there.
The list includes both all-time greats -- Gretzky and Lemieux, Crosby and Ovechkin, Gordie Howe and Rocket Richard -- along with journeymen who rose up in the biggest moments.
You don't get there by accident. This is sacred stuff.
Well, it used to be, anyway.
The Carolina Hurricanes put 53 new names on the Cup after last month's title, including the expected: star captain Jordan Staal, defensive stalwart Jaccob Slavin and coach Rod Brind'Amour. Not making the cut: longtime equipment manager Bobby Gorman and Joel Nystrom, who played 38 regular-season games, three fewer than the 41 games (half the season) that guaranteed a spot.
Hey, rules are rules; standards are standards.
Except, not for everyone. The first seven new names listed on the Cup include not just owner Tom Dundon (which is tradition) but also his wife and their five children, who range up to college age.
None of the Dundons, other than Tom, has any official role with the franchise. None played or coached or scouted or even drove the Zamboni.
Yet there they are, gifted hockey immortality because, well, they happened to be related to a guy who made so much money in the subprime auto loan business that he bought the Canes (and the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers).
You could call this the culture of participation trophies coming for one of the most famous trophies in all of sports, but this didn't even require any participation.
To be clear, the Dundons aren't the first family to appear on the Cup. Previous owners have included the names of wives and adult children, but they at least held titles as co-owners, alternate governors or vice presidents.
The celebration of nepotism was cringey, but at least there was a loophole. Unfortunately, said loophole keeps expanding, moving further from the original intent of canonizing the actual team.
Now that the Dundons are including children, how long until nieces, nephews and family pets become the norm?
The backlash has been understandably nuclear. Hockey fans rightfully treasure the Cup above almost all else -- even when the trophy is captured on opposing ice, fans mostly stay to soak in the moment. The ceremony, even for a bitter rival, is that respected.
Many have called the children's inclusion ridiculous and arrogant. Really, it's just embarrassing, even if Dundon might be too out of touch to grasp that. Someone from the Hurricanes or the NHL should have saved him from himself.
(Neither the league nor the franchise responded to requests for comment, nuance or perspective, and they have declined other media as well since the engraving became public last week.)
There were earlier moments that threatened the Stanley Cup standard. In 1945, Toronto listed the coach's 11-year-old son, but he was deemed the team mascot. Smartly, that didn't become a trend. In 1984, the father of Edmonton owner Peter Pocklington was included despite having no role with the franchise. The NHL ordered the name crossed out on the Cup, a clear sign of where the league's standard was at the time.
If this all seems unnecessarily serious -- it's just a trophy, right? -- well, perhaps, but Stanley Cup seriousness has a long tradition.
It was first awarded in 1893 by Lord Frederick Stanley, then governor general of Canada. While the original bowl is now preserved in the Hall of Fame and the base has changed shape a few times, the Cup that Staal hoisted last month, screaming in joy as he got it, is the same one that Bobby Orr lifted decades ago with Boston.
The glory might be freshly earned, but it is driven by history.
Unlike in other sports, the NHL commissioner presents the championship trophy to the team captain, exhausted but exhilarated, who then skates around the ice before handing it to every last team member. Then, and only then, does the owner, arriving from some luxury box, get to touch it.
This is about the players, not the hedge fund manager.
Finally, in the offseason, each player gets a day with the Cup. It's been used as a baptismal font, visited an active war zone in Afghanistan and sunk to the bottom of Mario Lemieux's pool.
Most players take it to their hometowns -- from Moose Jaw to Massachusetts to Moscow -- for public events designed to inspire the next generation while honoring the community that got them there.
There is simply nothing else like it. Getting your name engraved on it is part of that; with the family name serving as a celebration of not just the player but also the parents who worked second jobs, counseled their kids through setbacks and drove through snowstorms to tournaments, just so their kid could chase a dream.
That's the Cup. And that's what gets lost as a society when earning it is devalued because the biggest bank accounts can just purchase what was once considered priceless.
Even, it seems, a name on the Stanley Cup.