TORONTO -- Would the real Phil Pritchard please stand up?
When you think of the Stanley Cup, you often think of Phil Pritchard as well, the Cup’s iconic keeper who is usually accompanying it wherever it goes.
On Saturday, in front of the Hockey Hall of Fame on Front Street in Toronto, there were a few more Phils than usual when the National Hockey League and the Hall teamed up to host the first-ever Stanley Cup KeeperCon.
Fans were invited to come to the Hall, dress like Pritchard and “present the Stanley Cup” with the same class, dignity, majesty and precision that Phil himself does.
After the contestants finished their presentations, the man himself arrived in a black SUV that pulled up on Front Street. Out of the car emerged Pritchard with the Stanley Cup. The cheers, gasps and applause when the Cup appeared were immediate.
But Pritchard was taken aback by the many other Phils he saw.
"Their hairdos are better than mine though," Pritchard told NHL.com. "My wife is here somewhere, maybe she’s going to leave with someone else. I hope not.
"When we pulled up and did the surprise off Front Street to see all these people out here, it’s pretty special and pretty exciting I think."
Ultimately, Ed Smit was crowned as the inaugural Stanley Cup KeeperCon Lookalike.
Smit arrived wearing a Hall of Fame golf shirt, a blonde wig to mimic Pritchard’s memorable hairstyle and his own handcrafted replica Stanley Cup that he built himself as a hobby several years ago.
“I’m still not sure why I built it but it seemed like a cool project to take on,” Smit said. “This one is handcrafted, all done by hand and I figured it’s going to
look good in the man cave.”
Smit’s Cup took him about a year working on-and-off to craft it into the right shape and dimensions as the real Stanley Cup. He has engraved the names of each team that won the Cup and adds the most recent winner each year.
The chance to show off his labor of love in front of a crowd of people was too good to pass up.
“It was a lot of work trying to find the right proportions and trying to get it to look as best I could,” Smit said. “It’s a thrill to be able to lug this around once in a while and get it out.”
What tipped the scales in his favor was when Smit finished his “presentation of the Cup”, he whipped out a white handkerchief and began “polishing” his Cup just as Pritchard often does. The crowd immediately roared.
“You’ve got to do something to stand out and that’s a standard Phil thing when he takes the Cup out of the case right before it’s presented, you have to give it a final shine,” Smit said.
Once crowned champion, Smit and Pritchard met up and took a few pictures together and then gathered all the contestants for a group shot.
“I’m a huge hockey fan, I love history and I love hockey and when you combine the two, I guess this is what you get,” Smit said.
“It’s always a thrill. I’d met him before and I’d seen the Cup before but anytime you get a chance to reconnect and see the Cup again, it’s always a thrill. As a Canadian, it’s a big symbol in our country and that’s never a bad thing. I just hope my team can win it.”
His team: the Edmonton Oilers, who trailed the Los Angeles Kings 2-1 in their best-of-7 Western Conference First Round series after a come-from-behind 7-4 win on Friday in Game 3.
For Pritchard, the scene was somewhat humbling. Never did he think when he began working with the Cup 37 years ago that he would become as synonymous with the iconic trophy as he has.
“I wanted to win the Stanley Cup as a kid and who didn’t?,” Pritchard said. “It’s the greatest trophy in sports but to be kind of part of that and to see the excitement build and to see peoples’ reactions when you’d walk into a building pushing in the Stanley Cup, it’s surreal in a way but to be such a small part of the game of hockey, it’s pretty spectacular.
“Our best thing is we don’t work a day in our lives.”
