This is the winning design for the Lord Stanley monument to be installed at the corner of Sparks and Elgin streets. The unveiling is set to take place in December 2017 to mark the 125th anniversary of the Stanley Cup and the NHL’s centennial. Covit/Nguyen/NorrThe Stanley Cup, a globally recognized symbol of hockey supremacy, is finally coming home. Sort of.
The Lord Stanley Memorial Monument Inc., a not-for-profit organization formed in 2010, has finally picked the winning design for the Lord Stanley’s Gift monument, a commemorative icon to be placed near the corner of Elgin and Sparks streets to pay tribute to Canada’s famous sports trophy.
The location for the memorial is just steps from the site of a 19th century hotel where a representative of Lord Stanley of Preston (the sixth Governor General of Canada) gifted the Stanley Cup to promote the fledgling game of ice hockey on March 18, 1892.
Set for completion by December 2017, the memorial is to be unveiled amidst celebrations of a trifecta of anniversaries — Canada’s 150th birthday, the 125th anniversary of Lord Stanley’s 1892 donation and the 100th anniversary of the formation of the National Hockey League in 1917.
Next year also marks the 25th anniversary of the modern version of the Ottawa Senators.
The winning design pays tribute to Lord Stanley’s original gift — a simple silver bowl purchased in Britain by Lord Stanley. He then donated the “Dominion Challenge Cup” to Canadian hockey because he and his family — all fans of the game — were in disbelief that there was no trophy to be given to the best team in the country.
When choosing the final design, the organization wanted to make sure the monument wouldn’t compete visually with the National War Memorial, which is situated nearby.
The winning design – submitted by the Covit/Nguyen/NORR design team based in Montreal – was chosen over submissions from seven other teams in the competition to create the monument.
The proposed sculpture – standing three metres tall and made of slivered aluminum bands people can walk through – will closely resemble the silver bowl donated by Lord Stanley, recognized now by fans as the top portion of what is today a much taller, multi-tiered Stanley Cup.
Jean-Patrice Martel, president of the Society for International Hockey Research, said he hopes the design piques peoples’ interest in the history of not only the now-famous Stanley Cup, but also the history of Canada’s governors general and of the country itself.
Many people think the Stanley Cup is an NHL trophy, said Martel.
“It’s not an NHL trophy — it’s a Canadian trophy,” he said, adding that Canada is doing the NHL a favour by allowing the U.S.-based organization to give the cup to its champion team since it’s the premier league in the world.
“It’s a gift from Canada,” he said.
Former NHL player Murray Costello, a board member of the International Ice Hockey Federation and a Hockey Hall of Fame inductee in the builder category, also serves on the board of the Lord Stanley Memorial Monument Inc.
He said the late Paul Kitchen, an Ottawa archivist, author and hockey history expert, was the driving force behind this project.
“It was his dream” to see this happen, said Costello, and he and other members worked to ensure Kitchen’s dream came to fruition at the prominent downtown site.
“It’s a pivotal spot,” said Costello, “and we wanted to make sure it was in harmony with the existing monuments.”
According to Costello, Lord Stanley’s gift was a key moment in the growth of the country’s favourite sport, and the monument is a good way to commemorate what it meant for Canada.
No Canadian team has won the cup since the Montreal Canadiens accomplished the feat in 1993, and Martel said the monument is a way of saying, “It’s ours — it’s our symbol.”