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January 2, 2004

Hockey's holy grail sends fans into frenzy

"Kiss it! Kiss it!" a mother shouts to her son

PATRICIA D'SOUZA

CLICK PHOTO TO ENLARGE
Const. Joe Baines plays out one of his childhood dreams outside the Cape Dorset arena.

CAPE DORSET - Phil Pritchard lives the life of a celebrity. As he travels the world, presidents fawn and television stars swoon.

This week, during a quick visit to Cape Dorset, more than half the town turned out at the community centre with cameras ready to capture the moment.

And though he was happy to sign autographs and have his picture taken with local kids and their star-struck parents, Pritchard knew he was just the warm-up act.

As curator and director of hockey operations for Toronto's Hockey Hall of Fame, Pritchard is the humble servant to the holy grail of the game - the Stanley Cup.

Just before Christmas, he escorted the cup aboard a dedicated RCMP airplane on a four-day, 9,500-mile tour of the Canadian Arctic, starting in Yellowknife, travelling to Norman Wells, Inuvik and Hay River, before crossing the border to Cambridge Bay, Taloyoak, Iqaluit, Cape Dorset and Pangnirtung.

For five solid hours on the afternoon of Dec. 21, young and old lined up at the Arctic Winter Games arena in Iqaluit to have their picture taken with the metal monument, as if it were a shopping mall Santa.

CLICK PHOTO TO ENLARGE
Cape Dorset's minor hockey players hope to repeat this moment in another 10 years when they're playing in the NHL. (PHOTOS BY PATRICIA DÕSOUZA)

That evening in Cape Dorset, Pritchard hoisted the cup in much less orderly surroundings. As he entered the hall - arriving more than an hour later than expected - hockey fans of all different stripes rose to their feet and nearly trampled one another in a rush to lay their hands on the trophy.

His own hands clad in archivist's gloves, he placed the cup gingerly on a table at the front of the hall. But when he saw the crowd would not be satisfied with a glimpse from afar, he handed the cup over to Const. Joe Baines and Const. Jonathan Saxby, whose arms grew several inches as they carried the cup through the crowd.

"Kiss it! Kiss it!" one mother shouted at her son, as she squinted through the eye of a camera.

Though he doesn't have the star power of the Stanley Cup, Pritchard is a minor celebrity in his own right. In 2001, he starred in a television ad for MasterCard, and for the past two years he's been recognized as that guy from the commercial.

The "priceless" ad reviewed the cost of the cup's custom shipping crate, Pritchard's supply of white gloves, and the silver polish he uses to shine the trophy. As he brushes his teeth in a hotel room, the camera pans to the cup, and an announcer says, "Spending every waking moment with hockey's holy grail ... priceless."

On a trip to Rankin Inlet for a tournament in February 2000, Pritchard's fellow "keeper of the cup," Walt Neubrand, had his picture taken with the cup in the entranceway to an igloo.

The Web site of the National Hockey League also features photos of the cup in Detroit on a sea-doo with Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman and in Moscow in front of St. Basil's Cathedral being hoisted by Russian-born Red Wings.

So when Pritchard saw a snowmobile parked in front of Cape Dorset's arena, with a full set of caribou antlers tied to the hood, he knew he had to get a picture with the cup to show the folks back home in Toronto.

Back at the RCMP hangar in Iqaluit, the precious cargo was taken off the plane and loaded into an RCMP truck for the short ride to the Frobisher Inn and a well-deserved rest.