If the NHL lockout continues, Edmonton MP Brent Rathgeber wants the Stanley Cup awarded to amateurs, and the Spirit Challenge Cup hopes to do just that.
“The Stanley Cup does not belong to the NHL; it belongs to Canada,” Rathgeber said on his blog Tuesday.
The Spirit Challenge Cup, announced yesterday, is hoping to award the Stanley Cup in a 2013 tournament, should the NHL not be able to salvage the season.
“What we’re trying to do is provide an outlet for the ideas and dreams of people all over the place who feel they have no outlet for hockey,” said Tim Gilbert, a lawyer and one of the tournament’s organizers.
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Gilbert was the lawyer behind a court case during the last NHL lockout in 2004-2005, when Toronto amateur hockey players wanted an opportunity to play for the Stanley Cup.
Gilbert’s clients reached a settlement with the NHL, which allowed for the Stanley Cup’s trustees to award the trophy to a non-NHL team in a year where the NHL fails to organize the event.
“It’s just not going to happen,” one of the two trustees, Brian O’Neill, told The Canadian Press in September. The trophy should be awarded to the best NHL team, and “Anything less than that would demean the trophy,” O’Neill said at the time.
Gilbert doesn’t expect the trustees to “wake up and immediately embrace” the idea, but he hopes if his group puts together a convincing proposition, they’ll listen.
Online reaction to the amateur proposal has been generally positive. “I would love to see this happen,” said one Twitter user. “Hockey fans, this is awesome,” tweeted another.
“Why should the Holy Grail of Hockey collect dust simply because billionaire owners cannot work out their differences with millionaire players??” Rathgeber wrote.
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