No sports trophy in the world has a story as rich as the Stanley Cup. While most trophies are usually locked away in a case somewhere or in museums, or placed in exhibitions for fans to look at them, the Stanley Cup has a slightly different itinerary than its counterparts in other sports. The Cup is one of the oldest trophies in professional sports, and given the fact that the players of the team that wins it have the right to spend at least 24 hours with the Cup doing whatever they want, this trophy has more stories than probably most of the teams in the NHL.

From being used as a flower pot to being disgraced and used as a toilet to being stolen, the stories of the Stanley Cup are more than we could fit into one article. So here we have separated 15 times when the trophy was disgraced or used in a weird manner by players, and we also added a few instances in which fans did something hilarious with hockey’s most wanted trophy. Perhaps you are a huge hockey fan and have already heard most of the stories, maybe you are a hockey fan and you still haven’t heard a few of them. But either way, we hope that by the end of this article, even if you’re not a huge hockey fan, you can catch a glimpse of how many incredible stories have been told and happened because of one single trophy that we hope will stick around for many years to come and give us more and more amazing tales to wonder upon.

15 15. The world’s most expensive flower pot

This one is just plain it weird. It happened back in 1907 when the Montreal Wanderers won the trophy. Then, the Stanley Cup was not awarded to the team that won the NHL, but to the team that won the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association. Yes, back then the teams played a 10 game schedule that culminated in the Wanderers winning the title and taking the trophy home.

After winning the Stanley Cup, they took it to the home of a photographer to take a picture with the trophy. And here the accounts defer from source to source, but the one thing that is unanimous is that for some reason the trophy was forgotten at the photographer’s home, and it wasn’t until later that they found out that during the time it stayed there, either his mother or his wife was using the Stanley Cup as a flower pot for her geraniums.

14 14. Baptizing your kid in style

Here we will take a break from the word disgraced and turned it into graced. It doesn’t matter if you’re a religious person or not, you have to agree that getting baptized in something as holy as the Stanley Cup is to hockey, has to be the coolest story you would ever tell for the rest of your life if it happened to you. That is unless you go on to become a hockey player win the Cup for yourself.

His daughter didn’t go on to win the Stanley Cup, but Colorado Avalanche’s defenseman Sylvain Lefebvre did a pretty legendary thing for his baby girl as he took his time with the Cup after winning the 1996 season and used it to baptize his daughter. We have to admit; it was a classy move by Mr. Lefebvre.

13 13. Just a shiny animal feeder

This is where our list starts taking us to some of the most disrespectful things players have done with hockey’s most coveted trophy. Meet Clark Gillies. Some of you know him as one of the most legendary players to ever grace a New York Islanders uniform, as he was part of the team that won the Stanley Cup four years in a row. What you might not know about this guy is how bad he disgraced the Cup when he took it home and let his dog eat out of it.

But that was not the only time an animal allegedly ate out of the Cup. Apparently, New York Rangers’ Ed Olczyk took the Cup to Belmont Park back in 1994 and used the Cup to feed Kentucky Derby winner Go For Gin before that year’s Derby.

12 12. Does it float?

It is hard to imagine that anybody would ever think that something that weighs more than 30 pounds would float. Well, that was a real discussion after the Pittsburgh Penguins won their first Stanley Cup back in 1991. While the players were celebrating their one of a kind feat, they started discussing if the trophy would float or not if they threw it in the water. You know what’s coming, right?

Yes, as any rational human being would assume, Phil Bourque took matters into his own hands and decided to prove the theory. The Penguins’ player grabbed the Cup in the leaped into the pool of Mario Lemieux's house.

Not only did the Stanley Cup not float, but the trophy also ended up getting stuck to the bottom of the pool. Why Phil, why?

11 11. When Toronto lost the cup

The Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup in 1962. After that had happened, the trophy was placed at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, which seems like it would be a safe place to keep something that important. But that wasn’t the case. To make a long story short, the Stanley Cup was stolen from the Hall of Fame, as were the Conn Smythe and the Bill Masterson trophies. The latter two were quickly recovered by the police, but the same can’t be said about the Stanley Cup.

It wasn’t until seven years later that an anonymous tip led the police to a Toronto cleaning store, where they found the missing Stanley Cup wrapped like a Christmas present in a back storage room. It wasn’t a player who disgraced the Cup this time, but the freaking Hockey Hall of Fame, so we believe this story deserves a place on this list.

10 10. Left on the side of the road

There are a few things that ordinary people often forget as they go by their day. Sometimes you forget your keys, sometimes you forget your phone, and sometimes you forget the Stanley Cup on the side of the road. Wait, no, that last one should not be something normal. But believe it or not, it happened back in 1924 after the Montreal Canadiens won the Stanley Cup.

The guys were still in celebration mode as they were driving to the Canadiens’ owner’s place for yet another party when they had a problem with their vehicle and were forced to pull over and change a tire. They did what they had to do and changed the tire and soon enough were back on their way towards the party. However, it didn’t take long until someone finally realized they forgot something by the side of the road.

Yeah, these rocket scientists forgot the Stanley Cup on the side of the road and drove back like madmen to recover it. Luckily for them, the Cup was still there, just waiting for someone to take it away.

9 9. Ice Cream!

Over the years the Stanley Cup has been used to feed dogs, feed former Kentucky Derby winners, it has even been used to eat cereal out of. Still, the most creative culinary exploit of the Stanley Cup has to have happened in 2006 after Doug Weight won the Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes. Unlike his fellow Stanley Cup winners of the past, Doug decided to feed his family with the Cup. And guess what the meal he selected was? Ice cream. The odds are pretty high that the kids had some say in it, but at the end of the day, history will always remember how Doug Weight used his time with the Stanley Cup to eat gallons of ice cream with his family. At least the guy has good taste.

8 8. No, gentlemen. Thou shalt not kick the Stanley Cup

This ranks pretty high when it comes to athletes doing stupid stuff with trophies. If you thought that the Montreal Canadiens leaving the Stanley Cup by the side of the road in 1924 was bad enough, get ready for a whole new level of stupid.

In 1905, the Ottawa Silver Seven won the Stanley Cup and decided to celebrate in Ottawa. Partying by the side of the Rideau Canal on the Ottawa River, the guys agreed that they could punt the trophy over the canal. Sure, the Cup wasn’t as big back then as it is today, but still…

As you can probably imagine, the cup didn’t make it all the way across and ended up stranded in the middle of the canal. The lucky thing was that the water was frozen and somebody was able to recover the trophy the next day.

7 7. Adding your name to history

After you win the Stanley Cup, you get to have your name engraved in history and the outside of the trophy. Well, at least that’s how it is supposed to go for mere mortals. But when we are talking about the only guy to appear twice on this list, nothing is impossible. Phil Bourque won the Cup twice, and jumping with it into Mario Lemieux's pool wasn’t his only interesting story with the trophy.

Apparently, while he had the Cup in 1991, he heard some rattling and decided to make some repairs before passing it on to the next guy. It turns out that when he took apart the Cup, he found out that some repairmen had engraved their names on the inside of the trophy. Naturally, he couldn’t resist the temptation and wrote down “Phil Bourque, Pittsburgh Penguins, 90-91, Enjoy it!”

6 6. Taking it back to where it belongs

This is arguably the greatest story of a fan with the Stanley Cup. In 1962, the Montreal Canadiens were playing against the Chicago Blackhawks, who were the reigning defending Stanley Cup champions. The Blackhawks would go on to win this series 4-2, but not without something interesting happening at the Chicago Stadium.

A Montreal fan named Ken Kilander wasn’t too happy that his Canadiens were most likely not going to play for the Stanley Cup and decided to take matters into his own hands. At the time, the Blackhawks displayed the Cup inside a glass case on the stadium’s lobby. Kilander managed to get his hands on the trophy and was about to walk out of the stadium with it when a police officer stopped him. When asked what he was doing, he gave a legendary answer: “I want to take it back where belongs, to Montreal.”

5 5. Yzerman’s shower buddy

We’ve already established that players do weird stuff with the Stanley Cup. Some of them are understandable, like kissing the trophy, sleeping with it, and even baptizing your kid with it. But Detroit Red Wings’ legend Steve Yzerman raised the bar for those who would come after him. After taking the Cup home with the Red Wings in 1997, Steve was a little more intimate with the trophy than most of his teammates.

He did get naked with the trophy, but not for what you’re thinking, thank God. What this guy did was that instead of just sleeping with the Cup and hugging it, he went and took a shower with one of the most famous trophies in the world. We have no idea where the thought for it came from, but when you are the team captain, you can do pretty much anything you want.

4 4. Don’t leave your kids alone with the Stanley Cup

Most kids have a hard time telling their toys apart from world famous trophies or legendary objects. That was the case when Lester Patrick took the Stanley Cup home and left it in a cardboard box in his basement back in 1925. Yeah, this guy won the Stanley Cup and literally left it inside a box in his basement. But all that is beside the point, because before he retrieved the trophy, his two sons Lynn and Muzz found the Stanley Cup and went on to try to make a few modifications to it. By that, we mean that they tried to engrave their names on the trophy with a hammer and a nail.

The funny part is that their names got engraved on the Cup anyways as the two boys went on to win it on their own with the New York Rangers in 1940.

3 3. You won’t drink from the cup after hearing this one

No article about fascinating Stanley Cup stories is complete without the tale of Kris Draper. This legendary center won the Stanley Cup four times during his career with the Detroit Red Wings. Obviously, he has countless stories to tell when it comes to hockey. But none of his stories will ever come close to what happened in 2008 when he decided to put his newborn daughter in the Cup. Now imagine the reaction from everyone as the baby went on to poop inside the Stanley Cup. That almost makes you feel bad for everyone who drank and will drink stuff out of the Cup for years still to come.

But fear not, Draper made sure to appease everyone’s minds that he cleaned the Cup after what happened. "She pooped in the Cup," Draper said. "We had a pretty good laugh. I still drank out of it that night, so no worries."

2 2. A song of fire and pee

According to popular hockey superstition, this is the incident that sparked the curse that left the New York Rangers without a Stanley Cup title all the way from 1940 to 1994. Now, what could be so bad that a team would have to go through a 54-year drought to pay for their mistake?

The most famous story still has a shady beginning, but what we can say for certain is that the Stanley Cup caught fire for some reason as the Rangers were celebrating their 1940 championship, and they had to find a way to put out that fire. Unfortunately for everyone involved, they did not have a fire extinguisher or even water nearby to put out the fire, so the Rangers decided to pee on the Cup to put out the flames. Apparently, the hockey gods weren’t too happy about that one, and the price to pay for peeing on the Cup is 54 years.

1 1. Strip Club trip with Mark Messier

Mark Messier won the Stanley Cup on six different occasions. It is only fair to imagine that he had his share of chances to do some weird stuff with the trophy. Luckily for history and fans, Messier did not let his chances pass by without leaving some legendary stories behind.

Let’s think about it for a second, if there is one place you could go to show off your Stanley Cup for a night, where would it be?

For Mark Messier that was a strip club. This legendary center decided it was time to party in 1987 and he wouldn’t leave his good old friend the Stanley Cup behind. The result was a legendary night for everyone involved. Fans drank champagne out of it, he put it on the runway for the dancers to dance with it, and apparently it was the stuff of dreams. It's too bad social media wasn't around back then.