[Photos: Special to the Times]
Etched forever are the names of the Tampa Bay Lightning on the Stanley Cup. Silversmith Louise St. Jacques spent four days chiseling names like Martin St. Louis, Vincent Lecavalier and Brad Richards onto sports' most famous trophy.
Silversmith Louise St. Jacques works on the cup.
Louise St. Jacques engraves the Lightning names onto the Stanley Cup. "I'm a fan of all teams that win the Cup," she said.
It takes Louis St. Jacques what seems to be an absurd 10 hours to hammer out a measly 50 names. Sometimes the pressure gets so intense, she has to walk away. She cannot afford a mistake. If she makes one, it's there forever and people from St. Petersburg to Siberia to Sweden to Saskatchewan will see it.
After all, in her hands is the most famous trophy in sports.
Working out of a small silversmith shop in old Montreal, St. Jacques is entrusted with engraving the Stanley Cup and, Friday, she finished clanging out the names of the champion Tampa Bay Lightning.
With names such as Dave Andreychuk, Nikolai Khabibulin and Dmitry Afanasenkov, St. Jacques might need more than 10 hours.
"It is very time-consuming," said St. Jacques, who speaks perfect English through a thick French accent. "You have to be so careful. The worst thing you can do is make a mistake."
There are mistakes that have added to the charm of the Cup. Did you know that the BQSTQN BRUINS won the 1972 Cup? Or that the NEW YORK ILANDERS won the Cup in 1981? Or that Jacques Plante won five consecutive Cups in the late 1950's and his name is spelled differently each time?
St. Jacques, who started engraving the league's trophies in 1988, is just the fourth engraver of the Cup and she has made only one mistake. She misspelled the name of Colorado's Adam Deadmarsh, but later fixed it - the only time a mistake has been corrected on the Cup.
Born and raised in Quebec, St. Jacques said she is a hockey fan, but not a passionate one or a follower of any particular team.
"It wouldn't be right to say one team is my favorite," St. Jacques said. "I'm a fan of all teams that win the Cup."
She knows the names intimately because she studies them carefully. First, the winning team sends a list of names to go on the Cup to the NHL, which must approve the list according to a strict set of qualifying rules. For example, former Oilers owner Peter Pocklington once sneaked his father's name on the list and it made it to the Cup. Later, the name was covered with a series of X's because you can't erase an engravement.
St. Jacques then maps out the names to see how many letters can fit on a line. She does not work on the Cup as it is. Instead, she removes the band of the Cup that will be engraved.
"It will take 10 hours over four or so days," St. Jacques said. "You just can't engrave it all in one stretch. I think I would go crazy. You sit there and after a while, you start thinking about what you're doing and you start worrying about a mistake and then it gets too much. That's when I walk away. I might go away for an hour or I might go back the next day. It sounds (tedious), but it's a great honor. I love doing it and hope to do it the rest of my life. After all, it's the Stanley Cup."
