Many of the first winners of the Stanley cup scratched their names into the bowl with a nail or a knife. The culprits then proceeded to kick the bowl into the Redeau canal after a night of alcoholic celebration. .
The challenge trophy was to be passed from one club to another as property of the champions for only a short period of time all the while remaining under the control of the trustees put in place by Lord Stanley himself. The trustees had final control over the cup and whom it would be awarded to. The ill treatment of the cup forced the trustees to employ a silversmith in Montreal to remedy the problem. The Bowl that currently sits atop the Stanley Cup is an exact replica of the cup purchased by Lord Stanley in 1893. The cup would be taken back to the club to be boasted about until the next challenge came; sometimes there would be two or three challenges for the cup in one season if the weather permitted. Unlike other sports at the turn of the twentieth century in Canada hockey transcended many cultural boundaries. Many times the cup was played for between francophone and Anglophones and that was one of the big draws for the crowds that seemed to grow from game to game.
When Lord Stanley of Preston became Governor General of Canada in 1888, he and his seven sons moved to Ottawa. Once in Canada the boys discovered hockey and played it with a passion, so much so that Lord Stanley had an ice rink built at Rideau Hall, the Governor generals residence, so that amateur clubs that his sons belonged to had a place to play. The idea for the Stanley cup is believed to be one of Lord Stanley's sons both Arthur and Algy convinced their father to donate a trophy as "an outward and visible sign of the ice hockey championship"; a Captain Covill was entrusted with the task. He purchased the cup for fewer than fifty dollars Canadian from a silver smith in England (Coleman, 1976). It is not sure on how fond of the game Lord Stanley was himself.