Stanley Cup Shines

Like the Hall itself, the Stanley Cup has changed over the years. In the early days the winning trophy was a single bowl and had a different name. Originally, the championship teams were engraved on it, but not the names of individual players. Kelly Masse explains.

"I love the history of the Stanley Cup. I think it is the most beautiful sports trophy in the world. And one of the most revered, I think. And when you go up to the Great Hall, you will see all of the NHL trophies up there including the Stanley Cup. If you go into the bank vault and you will see the original bowl that Lord Stanley donated back in 1893 - it was called the Challenge Cup.

And if you look real close, you will see that they just used to put the teams on the bowl. But if you look close enough into the grooves and onto the lip of the Cup, you will see that players started to scratch and engrave their names into it. So I think that even back then they knew that they wanted their name on this Cup."

While the Hockey Hall of Fame has been in operation since 1961, Kelly Masse says it moved to its current location in the 1990's.

"It has been here at our current place at Yonge and Front Streets since 1993. Before that it was at the CNE fairgrounds, beginning I think from 1961 on," Masse says. "For your listeners who used to visit the Hockey Hall of Fame at the fairgrounds, they would see quite a different place at Yonge and Front streets. It is 56,000 square feet (5,300 square meters) of the world's greatest collection of hockey artifacts."