The budget for the proposed Stanley Cup monument at Sparks and Elgin streets has been reduced from $7 million to $4.5 million to help attract a sponsor.
Paul Kitchen, president of the group spearheading the project, insists the adjusted vision is no cause for alarm.
“The original budget of somewhere around $7 million was really sort of a rough guess in line with what is quite frequently the case with (projects of) national prominence,” he explains.
Even with the reduced budget, the group still thinks it can create something eye-catching and prominent enough to make people come out to see it, says Kitchen.
“We think that we should be able to have a wonderful monument that people will like to look at and contemplate and reflect on.”
The budget trim comes as the group is putting the “final touches” on a fundraising campaign, says Kitchen.
“We expect to approach the corporate sector and seek sponsorship from a firm that has national scope and perhaps a direct connection with hockey and the sporting world.”
The Stanley Cup was first donated as a “challenge cup” by Canada’s sixth governor general, Lord Stanley of Preston, in 1892.
On March 18 of that year, at a hotel close to the present-day corner of Sparks and Elgin streets, an aide to Lord Stanley announced the offer to donate a championship trophy representative of hockey supremacy in Canada.
While many think strictly about the Stanley Cup in terms of the NHL, the cup was first and foremost meant to honour amateur teams from across the country.
“The cup was originally a challenge trophy competed for by amateur teams from different parts of the country, and at some point or another 21 towns and cities across Canada have competed for the cup,” says Kitchen, who is also a hockey historian and former president of the Society for International Hockey Research.
The monument is planned to be inaugurated on March 18, 2017, a symbolic date because it marks the 125th anniversary of the donation of the Stanley Cup.
Next year, the Lord Stanley Memorial Monument Committee hopes to launch a national contest for the monument in order to come up with a design and promote the project.