The most revered trophy in sports always has a busy summer, traveling the world with championship hockey players and coaches. Each member of the Stanley Cup-winning NHL team is allowed 24 hours with the 35-pound trophy, which frequently serves as a food bowl and drinking chalice.
Lord Stanley’s iconic Cup has been atop mountains and at the bottom of a swimming pool. Players have taken it to movie premieres, the Kentucky Derby, and even a strip club. Now, for the fourth time in its venerable history, the Stanley Cup has been used as a baptismal font.
Stanley Cup: Baptisms of Player’s Kids Were Already Scheduled
On June 26, the Colorado Avalanche defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final, clinching its first championship in 21 years. Avs defenseman Jack Johnson, who signed a one-year deal with Colorado in October 2021, had a standing promise with his kids: If he ever won the Stanley Cup, they could eat ice cream out of it.
That opportunity finally arose, after 16 NHL seasons with five different teams. On July 16, Johnson, 35, took his three young children to an Ohio ice cream shop to enjoy an extra-large sundae out of the Cup. “I made sure with the [Cup’s] keepers if it was okay to eat ice cream out of it,” Johnson says, “and they said, ‘Yeah, have at it, so I was able to keep my promise to the kids.”
It turns out that’s not all the Johnson family used it for. Because their children were already scheduled to be baptized that weekend, they incorporated the trophy into the ceremony. Kelly Johnson, the player’s wife, shared photos of the special occasion, with the Stanley Cup serving as the baptismal font. Also in attendance were other athletic members of the family, including NFL players Brady Quinn and A.J. Hawk.
The Cup first was used during a baptism in 1996, by Avalanche player Sylvain Lefebvre. The trophy also has been present at weddings, always attended by its white-gloved handlers.
Jack Johnson’s Hockey Future Is Uncertain
Johnson, an Indiana native, is now an unrestricted free agent. “I’d love to go back to Denver,” he says of the Avs. Conversations are in the works, he adds, but “right now I’m just enjoying my day with the Cup, and we’ll see what happens.” Johnson recently completed a college degree from the University of Michigan.
The defenseman has bonded with Avs teammate Josh Manson because of their shared Christian faith. In a recent episode of the “Sports Spectrum Podcast,” Manson says of Johnson: “He’s a believer as well, and so I was able to have conversations with him a little bit just about prayer on the bench and whatever it may be.”
