Most hockey players will never get a chance to win the prized Stanley Cup trophy. But one Denver, Colorado couple didn’t have to spend a single second on the ice to hold it.
Kit Karbler and his husband Dmitri Rudenko were at their home in the city’s Hilltop neighborhood when the trophy was delivered on Tuesday, KDVR-TV reported.
At just under 3-feet-tall, the Stanley Cup arrived in a case and was meant for Stanley Cup champion player Gabriel Landeskog. According to Denver news station KUSA, he lives in the neighborhood and his address is similar to the couple’s.
Landeskog, the captain of the National Hockey League’s Colorado Avalanche, helped his team clinch the 2022 Stanley Cup Finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday.
The man who delivered the trophy, Hockey Hall of Fame’s Keeper of the Cup Philip Pritchard, allowed Karbler to lift the trophy just like NHL players do after they win the championship.
“I couldn’t believe how heavy it was. I ran my fingers over the engraving,” Karbler told KDVR.
The couple had watched the Stanley Cup Finals, KUSA reported, and Rudenko described the Stanley Cup’s appearance in their driveway as similar to “finding a treasure.”
“It made our day, and it’s something that we’ll be able to talk about and laugh about for a long time,” Karbler told KUSA.