The Stanley Cup

Okay, so what I'm trying to do at the moment is put up my photos of me holding the Stanley Cup (for those of you who may not know, it is the Holy Grail of Hockey Trophies). The site says that you can upload photos in any format (these happen to be bitmap) however, it keeps coming back at me with an error message. So, for right now, until I can get these things up here, you'll just have to believe my little story.

Tuesday January 3, 2006, I was at the Marriott Hotel doing my volunteer shift for the World Junior Hockey Tournament being held here in Vancouver. I was minding my own business, flirting with a very cute Russian agent named Alex, eating yummy steak in the Point Grey room and being very helpful to anyone who came to the desk. At one point, I wasn't totally paying attention and Amy, the lovely gal I was volunteering with was chatting with these 2 men, getting them a shuttle. She muttered a few words "cup", "trunk", "stanley" which was when I started to pay attention. I took a good long look at one of the 2 fellows... he was starting to seem REALLY familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place him. A minute passed... and then another minute passed (thanks to MP for that) and then.... it HIT ME!!! He was the keeper of the cup! the Lord of the grail! The man with the white gloves and he was sitting in my lobby! I grabbed my copy of the paper and flashed it in his face practically shouting at this point my excitement was so intense! Oh My God!!! You're HIM!!! And he said yes.... so I asked, "Doyouhavethecuphere????" (it really was one sentence). Yes he said, it's upstairs... would you like to see it? (GAHHHHH) Well... imagine me trying desperately to hold it together now that someone has asked me if I want to see the most magical cup in the entire world... "yes yes yes, I totally want to see it" I gasped. He asked if I had a camera... (D'OH!) ... I really do have to bless Amy for her quick thinking at this point... the volunteer phone... (Hallelulah) ... He told me that he would take a photo of me holding the cup. Well... I damn near peed my pants right then and there. I managed to hold it together a little longer and up we went to the room with ... THE CUP... he took it out of the crate and handed it to me... OH MY GOD ... What a feeling! I thought that jumping out of a perfectly good airplane was cool... and don't get me wrong, it was... but this! This is history, this is silver and this... is HEAVY!!! (note: it doesn't look that big or that heavy when the 6'2" hockey players who weigh a lot more than me hold it up in the air but DAMN!) It dwarfed me. I look like a midget next to it. It stands almost as tall as me (about 4 feet or so) and it's made almost entirely of silver... solid, shiny, beautiful silver... I could hear my blood whooshing through my body, my breath coming out in gasps... I was excited... but take the 2nd photo already I'm dying! I had to brace it on my thigh to keep it up for the 2nd photo.... 2 more seconds and we would have had a Stanley Cup down!

Wow... I really can't say much more about it.... other than HOLY SHIT! I've just held the Stanley Cup! Really, I will get these photos up as soon as I can so you all can see with your very own eyes!