THE STORY OF A TROPHY

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THE LFA CUP

The creation of a new adult hockey league meant creating a number of items, from the logo to team names, from the website and Facebook page, the kind of gadgets I never thought I’d see myself touch. That said, I call myself Ogie Ogilthorpe on Facebook and I’m 109, according to my profile. Not bad for an old coot !

Apart from the logo, the creation of the uniforms, the website, the choice of player-coaches, and everything else, it seemed important to me to create a cup for our beer league, a descriptor that doesn’t mean much to me, incidentally, but is current language in the hockey world. When I unofficially announced to the boys on a winter’s Tuesday night that I would start a new league in town, Eric Drapeau immediately volunteered to produce the cup, which still doesn’t have a final name as I write these words. Months went by, summer set in, and one evening during an NHL playoff game, Eric came over with Larry, a longtime devoted collaborator to brainstorm about the cup. We each had ideas in mind and the conversation brought out other possibilities, and at the end of the evening after a couple cold ones, and a lot of yakity yak, we had a plan.

The premise for the trophy was simple: I wanted it to be bigger than the Stanley Cup, that it be original and unique, and that it be just plain awesome. The original element was the cup at the top of the trophy that my father found in Lennoxville at the end of the 1990s, and was once the trophy for some championship or the other, but we unfortunately were not able to track it down. It was given to me when other members of the LFA and I were playing in another league and we didn’t have a championship cup.

The first year we made the playoffs and won the championship in that cupless league, my father gave us this cup so we’d have something from which to drink our Laurentide. (See photo evidence on the site.) After winning another championship in that league the following year, the cup found itself hoisted onto a top shelf at my place up until the creation of our new trophy.

Each of us came up with a design, and after a second meeting Eric drafted a plan starting from the elements we had chosen. Eric and I met several times to fine tune the design, and he then undertook the construction of the body of the trophy and to then fabricate the sticks with his brother on the lower north shore of the St. Lawrence. At the same time, I worked on 3D models with Jeremy Lancelin, which allowed me to bring important elements of the design of the trophy: the aluminum rings on a black background. Martin Maillé joined the team to make the pucks and rings on each flank of our masterpiece. After working with him on this phase of fabrication, my brother joined the project and spray-painted the cup for us. I then had an external company make the silver plaques.

The cup and the uniforms were unveiled at the same time during a gloriously well «watered» barbecue where everyone got to know each other, because we added a lot of new faces to a group of hockey players who had mostly been together for a long time. That day, we hadn’t completed the assembly of the cup, so as the boys arrived, Eric, Martin and I completed delivery of our baby while the guys had a good time with a beer or two, thanks to our beer sponsors, Tremblay.

The adventure complete, we can now say mission accomplished. I must pass along a special thanks to Eric for her perseverance and exceptional work.

Here is our latest video of our LFA trophy that will be awarded for the very first time April 26. Built in house, we hope you will be many to come and cheer us on while helping a good cause and having a good time !

JFD (AS TRANSLATED BY LES PERREAUX)

THE HOLY GRAIL!