Pritchard, Stanley Cup awaiting time in spotlight with Stars or Lightning

The Stanley Cup will be presented before month's end to the Dallas Stars or Tampa Bay Lightning at Rogers Place in Edmonton, and never has it been better rested for its presentation.

It's somehow fitting hockey's most historic trophy, which appeared in the arena during Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Saturday, and the almost surreal 2019-20 season are both nicked and scratched and a little dented. The Cup is dinged from decades of travel and rowdy celebration, the NHL from the coronavirus pandemic that paused the season on March 12 before returning at the end of July in the hub cities of Toronto and Edmonton.
"The Stanley Cup is imperfectly perfect, and the NHL season is exactly that as well," said Phil Pritchard, curator of the Hockey Hall of Fame and for the past three decades the white-gloved "Keeper of the Cup."
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On a night between Sept. 25 and 30, following Game 4, 5, 6 or 7 of the Cup Final, Pritchard and Hall of Fame colleague Craig Campbell will walk two trophies onto Rogers Place ice -- the Conn Smythe Trophy, awarded annually to the player voted to be most valuable to his team during the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the Stanley Cup.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman will first present the Conn Smythe to its winner, and then the Cup to the victorious Lightning or Stars.

Everyone in hockey knows the event will be unique, done in a creatively dressed, if virtually empty, arena. But Pritchard fully expects the magic of the moment will equal presentations that have gone before it, perhaps even surpass it in some ways given the rocky road traveled to get there.
It will be the first time the Stanley Cup will be awarded in Edmonton since 1988, when the Oilers, then playing at Northlands Coliseum, won their fourth championship in five seasons.
"When it happens this month, there'll be a red carpet for a Stanley Cup champion," Pritchard said Friday. "We'll walk the Cup out to the Commissioner. Whoever the champion is, they'll be a very deserving one. The celebration on the ice will be like it normally is. I hear that a lot of guys might have their families coming in, going through the quarantine process beforehand.
"The coronavirus itself has changed so much since March, as it will again between now and the presentation. Everything is fluid, changing all the time. We know there will be a Cup won and a celebration, we just don't yet know how it will be. There is no one involved in the game, from the League, the Hall of Fame or the teams, who wants to see anything negative. It's going to be a special year, there's going to be a champion, and everyone's going to be safe and healthy."

Hockey Hall of Fame's Phil Pritchard on Friday in Edmonton with the Stanley Cup, and in 2017 with hockey's most cherished prize.
The Stanley Cup was in Terrace, British Columbia, on March 10 and was supposed to fly from there down to its next appearance in North Vancouver. Perhaps Pritchard should have known an event scheduled for Friday the 13th might not turn out well.
With the NHL season paused one day earlier and most of the world beginning to shut down, Pritchard rerouted the Cup to its Toronto base, where it was locked up until it reemerged for fan photos in the Hall of Fame between July 15, when the shrine reopened to the public, and Labor Day Weekend.
Beyond the Hall of Fame, an appearance at Rogers Place on Saturday and a playoff-opening network TV studio spot in Toronto, the usually high profile, fan-friendly trophy has been kept under wraps.
Pritchard flew the Cup from Toronto to Edmonton on Sept. 7, the Conn Smythe Trophy and the Prince of Wales Trophy and Clarence S. Campbell Bowl, respectively awarded to the Eastern and Western Conference champions, having gone west a day earlier aboard an NHL charter.
After spending four days in hotel quarantine going through rigorous testing protocols, Pritchard has been in the Edmonton bubble, having walked the Campbell and Wales trophies onto Rogers Place ice for presentation by NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly to the Stars and Lightning. Those trophies, and the Conn Smythe, are now locked away in the arena with the Cup cooling its sterling heels in Pritchard's room.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, with Hockey Hall of Fame's Phil Pritchard (right) and Craig Campbell, on TD Garden ice in Boston on June 12, 2019 before the Stanley Cup presentation to the St. Louis Blues.
"When I was down on the ice, looking into the stands, it was certainly different, unique, looking up at where fans would be," Pritchard said. "What the NHL has created at the rink is quite something. It's amazing, down at ice level, to hear the sound of the skates and the puck hitting the boards, how loud and defined it is. It's true hockey, so powerful, and that's not to take anything away from the fans, who are a huge part of the game."
Campbell flew Saturday from Toronto to Edmonton and will spend four days in quarantine before joining Pritchard in the bubble.
It was the Stanley Cup's photo day on Friday, posing with off-ice officials, hotel staff, security and nurses and doctors, "many of the people who are vital in making this NHL bubble work," Pritchard said.
"It's amazing the way the NHL has worked with the medical community and everyone else. Until you're actually in the bubble, to see how it's operating, you can't understand everything that was set up and how it's all being obeyed to make it work. How they did this in Toronto and Edmonton and merged them here in early September is incredible."
With players, team officials and families having been safely in or introduced into the bubble, the on-ice Stanley Cup celebration should not be too unlike ones before it.

Frank Calder, the NHL's first president, presents the 1933 Stanley Cup to the New York Rangers.
Pritchard or Campbell, who might or might not be wearing masks when they carry the trophies out to Commissioner Bettman, are scheduled to charter from Edmonton with the winning team as caretaker of the Cup and Conn Smythe. Any civic celebration upon touchdown, however, is anyone's guess. There are no firms plans for winning team members to enjoy their traditional day with the Cup, though that might happen in some fashion.
"We'll walk out to our spots on the ice and we're away from everyone, Pritchard said. "Masked or not is fine. We'll respect whatever needs be done. Social distancing is part of life now.
"In Tampa or Dallas, we'll respect the government rules and regulations to the letter. There are no short cuts. All due diligence will be done. We'll work with the NHL and state, civic and team medical departments to make it as special as possible. New York has canceled its Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Germany has cancelled Oktoberfest. Who knows what will happen in the next two weeks in hockey and the world?"
What Pritchard does know, however, is how remarkable this experience has been in a time of great anxiety and uncertainty.
"From my time here, I can see that Tampa [Bay] and Dallas have really bonded as teams and teammates," he said. "I think that all 24 teams that were part of Return to Play bonded in some way. But as the bubble has continued, two finalists have really bonded and they'll have this special place in their hearts forever."