The Stanley Cup is already damaged as Panthers go full throttle with boozy celebration

The Panthers might be having a little too much fun with the Stanley Cup. The bowl of the trophy is cracked and the bottom is dented – a result of the team’s rambunctious celebrations after winning the title with a 5-1 triumph over the Oilers in Game 6 Tuesday. As is tradition for teams that win the Cup, the Panthers celebrated with the silver trophy Tuesday night and kept the party going from there, spending Wednesday morning at Fort Lauderdale beach bar Elbo Room. Somewhere along the way, the team managed to damage the 32.5-inch, 34.5-pound trophy. Not to worry, though, since the keepers of the Cup are taking the necessary steps to repair the trophy before the Panthers’ parade on Sunday, a spokesperson for the Hockey Hall of Fame told ESPN. This isn’t the first time the Cup has gotten banged up.The base of the trophy was damaged as recently as 2022, when then-Avalanche forward Nicolas Aube-Kubel lost his balance while skating into Colorado’s team photo with the Cup.Mark Messier damaged the trophy when he took it on a trip to the club after winning with the Oilers in 1987, requiring repair at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. And the Rangers had an incident of their own in 1994, when the team brought the trophy to Belmont Park, only for that year’s winner of the Kentucky Derby to damage the Cup while attempting to eat oats out of it.There have been plenty of other trophies damaged in celebration outside of hockey, of course, Alabama football shattered the Coaches’ Trophy, worth $30,000, after winning the BCS national title in 2012, and Wisconsin football broke the Duke’s Mayo Bowl trophy, which included a football-shaped piece of crystal, after quarterback Graham Mertz dropped it in the locker room in 2020. ...