At Wednesday night’s BC Hall of Fame Banquet of Champions, one of the table centrepieces — a vintage trophy — went missing.
Organizers were perplexed as to who would have walked off with the piece of B.C. sports memorabilia, and put out a plea to the public for help finding it.
Global News broadcast the story, and not too long after, the trophy thief contacted the newsroom to own up to the crime.
Evan, who didn’t reveal his last name, was sitting at the table where the trophy was featured, and said someone else in his party of rugby players took the trophy not knowing it wasn’t up for grabs.
Their motive? The trophy had been locked up inside for far too long, and deserved to be shown a good time, Evan said.
So in a few short days, the trophy traveled to Whistler, partook on a cherry blossom tour and even made it to an après ski hot tub party.
The sterling silver trophy, valued at $5,000 to $8,000, originally belonged to the Vancouver City Combined Ski Championship Challenge.
When Global News returned the trophy to the BC Sports Hall of Fame on Sunday, Alison Mailer with the organization said the trophy seemed to be in good condition.
“We will be evaluating what we do for centrepieces in the future. This is a big stretch for an organization like ours to put its collection on display like this for guests,” Mailer said.
The organization won’t be pressing any charges, saying they’re just glad to have the historic trophy back.
—With files from Grace Ke