Up The Pucks asked a good question on twitter today:

Our question of the day: Should fans touch the Stanley Cup or does the “don’t touch it until you win it” rule/superstition apply to fans?

Here was my answer:

@UpThePucks Touch it. Hug it. Spend some time with it. Don’t hoist it over your head and skate a lap with it.

Let me expand on that a bit.  I will never win a Stanley Cup.  The closest I will come is that the money I spend on tickets, merch, and being a fan in general allows the team to spend money on players who will hopefully win the Stanley Cup.  My skill, talent and dedication for all my years on this earth have not gone into hockey, they have gone into other endeavors.  I am a balding ex-smoker who works in theater, is out of shape, plays rec hockey, and will never win a Stanley Cup.  The team I pull for has, and that’s good enough for me.

The Cup is not kept in a glass case when it’s on tour (the original is, but that’s a little different).  It isn’t in a Pope-mobile.  It’s there for you to touch it.  If you don’t want to, don’t.  If you do, go for it. If anyone gives you crap for it, tell them to get lost.  This is your time with the Cup.

And if you have never been around it, or if your team won it for the first time, you don’t have to act all cool like you have been there before.  You haven’t.  Feel free to freak the F’ing H out.  Chances are, the people around you acting all cool are doing so inside as well.  Being cool is highly overrated.

(yes, I took that photo)