That Time We Met the Guy Who Engraved Players' Names on the Stanley Cup

The Tampa Bay Lightning just won the Stanley Cup for the second year in a row. The players and coaches will now have their names engraved on the best trophy in all of sports. Which takes me back to …

Our dad took my 3 brothers, 2 sisters, our mom, and our Uncle Dick* on a trip from Philadelphia to Montreal in 1967 to enjoy the Expo 67 World’s Fair. Dad somehow learned that Carl Poul Petersen was the guy who engraved the names on the cup back then, and that he lived at 1221 MacKay Street. So, of course we popped in for a visit.

* You have to know this about Uncle Dick, who is in the picture, and who would have turned 100 earlier this month: When my brothers and I started playing hockey, UD (as he told us to call him), attended every game. He started working the scoreboard, and whenever we were losing a tight game, he would “forget” to start the clock after a faceoff to buy us extra time. If I made what he thought was a good play, and the ref didn’t give me an assist, UD would give me one in the scorebook. UD eventually became a professional Zamboni driver.

Back to Montreal … Mr. Petersen was not only gracious enough to open the door to these hockey-mad geeks from Philadelphia, he also let us into his living room / workshop, where the cup was in pieces on the floor. The 5 silver bands that make up the bottom of the cup – the bands on which he engraved winning players’ names, one letter at a time - were individually coiled on the floor.

Mr. Petersen let us stand on his doorstep, with the top of the cup – the actual original Stanley freakin’ Cup – for this ceremonial picture.

Left to right, that’s my brother Mike, me (the geek reference above is clearly legitimate), Mr. Petersen, our late brother Rick holding the cup, UD, and my brother Gump (yeah, we were a hockey family).

Mr. Petersen’s cigar completes this perfectly memorable snapshot in time.

Originally posted to LinkedIn on July 8, 2021