Thompson’s Munn Cup champion atom AA King Miners got the chance to spend some time with an even more difficult to capture trophy when they were surprised by a visit from the Stanley Cup before their practice Wednesday.
The trip to Thompson was arranged by Scotiabank, one of the sponsors of Rogers Hometown Hockey, which stops in Thompson this weekend as part of a 25-city tour through Canada.
The players had been told they were going to have their team photos redone and came into the dressing room in their black King Miner uniforms only to find something they never expected.
“It’s pretty cool that I get to meet it in person,” said Ethan Williment.
Brady Krentz had seen the Cup before when he was at a hockey school but never expected to find it in his hometown arena.
“I was pretty surprised that the Cup was there,” he said. “I just ran to see it. I didn’t really expect it to be there.”
When they thought they were coming in for photos everybody was eager to get it over and done with, Krentz said, but that soon changed. “We saw the Cup in there and everybody wants to stay because no one really wants to leave now that the Cup’s here.”
Carter Bassett, who’d never seen the Stanley Cup in person before, said it was bigger than he expected.
“I’ve heard how big it was,” said Bassett. “I heard it was like 36 pounds.”
Cyrus Parsai, manager of Scotiabank’s Thompson branch, said the visit from the Cup was a thank you to the team, one of many that the bank sponsors across the country, for being excellent ambassadors for Thompson and Scotiabank.
“Hockey matters to Scotiabank because it matters to Canadians,” Parsai said. “Since 2007, we’ve proudly sponsored kids’ community hockey including your team, the Thompson Atom AA King Miners, through our community hockey sponsorship program. Congratulations for your success in winning the Munn Cup. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for you all and we’re thrilled to be a part of it.”
Scotiabank is also donating $15,000 to minor hockey programs in each of the cities that Rogers Hometown Hockey visits during the NHL season.
The Stanley Cup was accompanied to Thompson by Mike Bolt, one of the keepers of the Cup, which spends almost all of its time with him and two other keepers.
“There’s always a handler with it 24-7,” said Bolt. “The only time it’s really out of our hands is when we check in at the airline and the airlines take responsibility for it and make sure it gets on the plane and gets to the next destination.”
In his 16 years as a keeper, Bolt says he’s accompanied the Cup to innumerable destinations.
“We’re all over the world,” Bolt says. “In the summer we’re with the winning team and a lot of hockey players come from small towns, whether it’s in Canada, U.S. or Europe. Scotiabank again, when we’re doing our tour, we do about 14 stops across Canada. A lot of them are in small towns across Canada. We do minor hockey tournaments, charity events, a variety of different things, so I literally have been everywhere. And so has Lord Stanley. Lord Stanley’s been more places than I have. It’s a responsibility, a privilege and an honour, all kind of rolled into one.”
What never changes is the reaction the trophy gets.
“Everywhere we go, it doesn’t matter where we are in the world,” said Bolt. “We don’t get up to Thompson, Manitoba very often but we just come up here for these kids, part of the Scotiabank group, and have a nice little surprise for them. Not everybody obviously in Thompson’s going to get to see it. This is really just special for this hockey team here. Anytime you can do something like this and surprise a group of kids, it’s an amazing experience and they’ve got their championship trophy here, which is pretty amazing. That’s got a lot of history, It’s 45 years old, I was told.”
Only one thing is probably better than being the keeper, said Bolt.
“It wasn’t something I dreamed of growing up,” he admits. “Like any kid growing up in Canada, I dreamed of winning the Cup, not looking after it, but this is probably the second best.”
