Stanley Cup crossing the Pond!

[penny lane]

For our UK friends:
CUP OF TEA FOR STANLEY

Before the Stanley Cup gets handed off by Gary Bettman in June, it's taking a little trip home for the first time in more than a century.

Stanley is going to London, England, next Tuesday through Thursday, accompanied by Hockey Hall of Fame curator Phil Pritchard. The Cup will visit several landmarks and be present on Regent St. Thursday when a historical plaque will be unveiled at the site of a silversmith's shop where the Cup was first purchased for 10 guineas ($51.10 Cdn. ) in 1892.

That evening, the Cup will be displayed at a private reception at Canada House, with the relatives of Lord Frederick Stanley, the Earl of Derby, among the invited guests. Lord Stanley, the governor general of Canada and a big hockey fan, never saw the trophy he donated get presented as he went home during the 1893 season and died in Holwood, England, in 1908.