Stanley Cup Trivia
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98 free Stanley Cup trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Stanley Cup is the oldest trophy awarded to a professional sports franchise in North America, and the only one that is never replaced: the same barrel is handed from champion to champion, with names engraved on it every year since 1924. This 98-question quiz covers the whole strange life of Lord Stanley's bowl, from the ten-guinea purchase in 1892 to the Carolina Hurricanes' 2026 win. Expect questions on the challenge era and the first winners, the Seattle Metropolitans and the 1919 flu cancellation, the 1947 deal that handed control to the NHL, the 2005 lockout, the five-band redesign, the Stovepipe Cup, the three physical versions of the trophy, engraving errors and scratched-out names, and the traditions, including champagne, hoisting, the day-with-the-Cup and the racehorse that drank from it. Fifty questions, four options each, with a short explanation after every answer. Play on your phone, share your score, or print it for a hockey night.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Stanley Cup is named after which office-holder who donated it?
A governor general of Canada
A governor general of Canada, Lord Stanley bought the silver bowl in 1892 as a prize for the country's top amateur club. It is now the oldest trophy that professional athletes compete for in North America.
Q 02What was the Stanley Cup originally called?
Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup
Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup is engraved on one side of the rim and 'From Stanley of Preston' on the other. By the mid-1890s the trophy was known by its donor's name instead.
Q 03Which club was the first to be awarded the Stanley Cup, in 1893?
Montreal Hockey Club
Montreal Hockey Club never played a game for it: as 1893 champions of their league, they were awarded the brand-new trophy without a challenge.
Q 04An aide to Lord Stanley bought the bowl that became the Stanley Cup from a silversmith in which city?
London
London silversmith G. R. Collis sold the bowl from his Regent Street shop. Hockey's great Canadian prize then crossed the Atlantic, reaching Ottawa in 1893.
Q 05Silver historian John Culme says the original Stanley Cup is really what?
A rose bowl
A rose bowl, he said: a common Victorian centrepiece made to sit in the middle of a dining table filled with flowers. He had catalogued hundreds like it at Sotheby's.
Q 06Lord Stanley first saw hockey at the 1889 Winter Carnival in which city?
Montreal
Montreal put the game on as a carnival attraction, and the Gazette reported Lord Stanley's 'great delight'. Soon his sons and daughter were playing the game themselves.
Q 07Which trophy goes to the most valuable player of the Stanley Cup playoffs?
Conn Smythe Trophy
The Conn Smythe Trophy is judged on the whole postseason, not just the final, so it has sometimes gone to a player on the losing side, as it did with Connor McDavid in 2024.
Q 08Why did Lord Stanley never watch a Stanley Cup game?
He had returned to England
He had returned to England in July 1893, when his brother's death made him Earl of Derby. The first games played for his trophy came the following March.
Q 09In 1905, a Stanley Cup challenger travelled for weeks by sled, ship and train from which gold-rush town?
Dawson City
Dawson City's Nuggets left the Klondike by sled, bicycle and on foot before reaching trains and a steamer. In Ottawa they lost 9-2 and then 23-2, the most lopsided game in Cup history.
Q 10In 1896, a team from which Prairie city became the first challenger to win the Stanley Cup?
Winnipeg
Winnipeg's Victorias went east and shut out the holders 2-0 on Valentine's Day 1896, the first time the Cup left its home city. The beaten champions travelled west and won it back that December.
Q 11Which Ontario university was the first official challenger for the Stanley Cup, in 1895?
Queen's University
Queen's University lost 5-1 to the previous year's winners, and the result crowned a team that never took the ice: officials had ruled a home win would hand the Cup to that season's league champions.
Q 12Which Ontario town is the smallest community ever to win the Stanley Cup?
Kenora
Kenora's Thistles beat the champion Wanderers in January 1907, then lost the rematch that March, so the little town on Lake of the Woods held the Cup for just two months.
Q 13In 1924, Canadiens players left the Stanley Cup by the roadside after stopping to do what?
Change a flat tire
Q 21Which team has won the Stanley Cup a record 24 times?
Montreal Canadiens
Montreal Canadiens won five in a row from 1956 to 1960 on the way to 24. The last came in 1993, and as of 2026 no Canadian-based team has lifted the Cup since.
Q 22Which US-based franchise has won the Stanley Cup the most times, with 11?
Detroit Red Wings
Detroit Red Wings fans celebrate playoff time by throwing an octopus onto the ice: in 1952 its eight arms stood for the eight wins then needed to take the Cup.
Q 23How much does the Stanley Cup weigh?
About 35 pounds
About 35 pounds, in a trophy just under three feet tall. It began as a bowl about seven inches high and grew as bands of winners' names were added beneath it.
Change a flat tire: they set the Cup down by the road, then drove off to the owner's victory party without it. They went back and found it sitting in a snowbank.
Q 14Which trophy was created for Canada's amateurs when professionals took over the Stanley Cup?
Allan Cup
The Allan Cup was donated in 1909 by businessman Sir Montagu Allan, soon after the Stanley Cup became a professional prize, so that the best amateurs would keep playing.
Q 15Which club became the first US-based team to win the Stanley Cup, in 1917?
Seattle Metropolitans
Seattle Metropolitans lost the opener, then won three straight in March 1917, months before the NHL was founded. In 2021 the NHL's Kraken raised a banner in their honour.
Q 16Why was the Stanley Cup not awarded in 1919?
A Spanish flu outbreak
A Spanish flu outbreak put so many players in hospital that the deciding game was never played, with the series level. Canadiens defenceman Joe Hall died days later.
Q 17Which Vancouver Island club was the last non-NHL Stanley Cup winner, in 1925?
Victoria Cougars
Victoria Cougars beat the NHL's champions in 1925. A year later their league dissolved and their players were sold to a new NHL club in Detroit, first called the Cougars and now the Red Wings.
Q 18The NHL uses the Stanley Cup by agreement with whom?
Two Canadian trustees
Two Canadian trustees still hold the Cup under Lord Stanley's original terms. A 1947 agreement let the NHL run the competition, and the league has admitted it does not technically own the trophy.
Q 19Why was no Stanley Cup champion crowned in 2005?
An NHL lockout
An NHL lockout cancelled the whole 2004-05 season in a pay dispute between owners and players. That year's space on the Cup carries no names, only the words 'Season not played'.
Q 20Which women's hockey trophy grew out of a 2005 proposal to award the Stanley Cup to a women's team?
Clarkson Cup
The Clarkson Cup was donated by Adrienne Clarkson, who had made the proposal. Instead of borrowing the men's prize, women's hockey got a championship trophy of its own, first played for by clubs in 2009.
Q 24As yearly bands made it tall and thin, the Stanley Cup earned which nickname?
Stovepipe Cup
Stovepipe Cup: by the 1940s the stack of bands looked like a stove's chimney pipe and had become too unwieldy to handle, so the trophy was redesigned.
Q 25In 1991, a Penguins teammate threw the Stanley Cup into whose swimming pool to see if it would float?
Mario Lemieux
Mario Lemieux was hosting the new champions at his house when a teammate tossed the Cup into the pool to settle the question. It sank straight to the bottom.
Q 26Where do the Stanley Cup's retired bands of names go on display?
Hockey Hall of Fame, Toronto
Hockey Hall of Fame, Toronto, takes the oldest band each time the newest fills with 13 champions. Without that swap the Cup would keep growing taller.
Q 27Legend says the 1905 champions tried to drop-kick the Stanley Cup across which frozen canal?
Rideau Canal
Rideau Canal, the story goes: the Cup landed on the ice after a victory banquet and was fetched the next day. The tale has never been confirmed, but it has been retold ever since.
Q 28What marks the Stanley Cup that champions lift as authentic?
A Hall of Fame seal on the bottom
A Hall of Fame seal on the bottom sets it apart from the copy kept for display. You can spot it when a player hoists the Cup overhead.
Q 29How are the winners' names put onto the Stanley Cup each year?
Stamped with a hammer
Stamped with a hammer: the engraver sinks each letter into the silver with a steel punch, about half an hour per name, after the Cup has been taken apart band by band.
Q 30Nicknamed the 'Pocket Rocket', which Canadien won a record 11 Stanley Cups as a player?
Henri Richard
Henri Richard's nickname measured him against his older brother Maurice, 'the Rocket'. He ended up with 11 Cups to his famous brother's eight.