Will the Stanley Cup come out to the suburbs?
If you didn't get to see the Stanley Cup on Tuesday, don't worry. If history is any indicator, the coveted trophy will come out to the suburbs many times in the coming weeks.
But where it will go, and when, is still unknown.
When the Blackhawks won the championship in 2010, the 35-pound Stanley Cup made many suburban appearances, starting with a party at Harry Caray's in Rosemont (as it did Tuesday) and including a Barrington school, Advocate Lutheran General's Children's Hospital in Park Ridge, a Lombard restaurant and more.
Locating the historic cup Tuesday was an online sport. A Google map was tracking its location, @wheresthecup Chicago 2013. On Twitter, fans followed the cup's every move, many using the #cuptracker hashtag.
As rumors spread about where the cup was headed, throngs of fans showed up in anticipation. But not every rumor was true.
Hundreds of people gathered in front of York Tavern in Oak Brook, a place Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville frequents, but Lord Stanley's cup was a no-show. Media photos showed Quenneville returning to his toilet-papered house in Hinsdale on Tuesday morning, spawning rumors that the cup was with him, but it was not.
Fans who came to Harry Caray's at 4:45 a.m. Tuesday did get to see the cup, however, as well as many Blackhawks players.
What next for the cup? Each player, and many members of the Blackhawks organization, gets to direct its movements for one day.
It's possible it will turn up in Elk Grove Village sometime soon, since Blackhawks President and CEO John McDonough is a longtime resident and brought it there in 2010 for the village's HomeTown Parade.
Elk Grove Village Mayor Craig Johnson said he's hopeful, but not positive, McDonough will bring it back again, even though this year's parade has already happened.
“If, for some reason, (McDonough) wants to show it to the community again, we'll find a way,” Johnson said. “I've already got some ideas.”
The Stanley Cup is given to the team members first. Then, trainers, scouts, managers and others in the organization get to host it, usually for just one day. There are “Keepers of the Cup” who travel with it, clean it, protect it and make sure it's treated respectfully (in 1995, the rules were tightened to keep it out of strip clubs and casinos). There's usually additional security around it.
The cup has traveled the globe, often in a limousine or with a first-class airline ticket. In recent years, it's been at Niagara Falls, in Toronto nightclubs, at a Jimmy Buffett concert at Toyota Park in Bridgeview and at Chicago's Pride Parade. People have drunk out of it, babies have sat in it, players have slept next to it, and there are all sorts of urban legends about places it's been and liquids it's held.