Free Stanley? Only to the ones who truly deserve the chance.

With the NHL lockout now extending past 21 weeks, hockey fans around the globe are facing the grim reality that the Stanley Cup will not be awarded for the first time since 1919. In an effort to avert this travesty, the website FreeStanley.com is petitioning for the Trustees of hockey’s most coveted trophy – Brian O’Neill and Scotty Morrison - to award the Cup to the winner of a tournament based on the original challenge cup format. It has been suggested that the participants would consist of the Canadian university hockey champions, the Memorial Cup champions, the Allan Cup champions, and perhaps the best team among the AHL, ECHL and minor pro ranks. The proposal put forth obviously faces some legal obstacles as the Trustees continue to maintain that the Stanley Cup is the sole property of the National Hockey League.

Recently my friend Mimi and I attended a junior hockey game with friends and engaged in a friendly discussion regarding who, if anyone, should be awarded the sport’s Holy Grail in the highly probable event of the cancellation of the 2004-05 season and playoffs. I voiced my opposition to the FreeStanley.com concept by offering the opinion that not only would it diminish the efforts of the true Stanley Cup winners, but also those of the former NHL players who have had illustrious careers but never played on a championship team. “Why would I want to see Joe McShmoe from Dunnville, Ontario get to hoist the Stanley Cup when Hall-of-Famers like Gilbert Perreault and Mike Gartner never got the chance?” I asked. My friend, always a worthy opponent in the art of oratory debate, responded in kind: “Okay, what if you got a bunch of former players who never won it, to play for it?”

And in a fleeting moment of ingenuity, we came to a simultaneous agreement.

For, despite the trophy’s history dating back to its benefactor Frederick Arthur, Lord Stanley of Preston and its inaugural presentation to the 1893 Montreal AAA of the National Hockey Association, the Stanley Cup as we know it is all about the NHL. While the concept of having no Cup awarded in a calendar year is unimaginable to the die-hard hockey fan, presenting the trophy to a bunch of players - mostly whose names nobody will remember one hour after the celebration - would be an equal perversion.

The players who should be given the chance to hoist the Holy Grail high don’t play for the Innisfil Eagles, or the London Knights, or the Charlotte Checkers. Instead, they toiled in the NHL for 80, 90, 100 games a year, but never won the ultimate prize. Their names are Sittler, Ratelle and Hawerchuk. We collected their hockey cards. We watched them on Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday nights.

And they should all be given one last chance at glory.

One game. No contact. One prize.

A pick-up game in a format essentially similar to the Hockey Hall of Fame Legends’ Games that have been played at Air Canada Centre.

The exception is that the victors are awarded a trophy that’s 112 years old and was once purchased for $48.67, instead of the usual stipend of a bust of Elvis Presley.

Think of the opening faceoff. On one side there is the Triple Crown Line from the Kings of the 80’s: Marcel Dionne, Dave Taylor and Charlie Simmer. Their counterparts are the French Connection Line employed by the Buffalo Sabres of the 70’s: Perreault, Richard Martin and Rene Robert. The defence tandem on one blue line consists of two Hall-of-Famers: Borje Salming and Brad Park. To counter, the opposing team also starts with a pair of former First Team All-Stars: Doug Wilson and Mark Howe. Between the pipes Ron Hextall and Kelly Hrudey are dueling in friendly combat.

At game’s end the 20 players on the winning side are rewarded with the opportunity to do something they never could over their collective, accomplished careers; hoist the Stanley Cup over their heads.

Think that it won’t mean anything to these celebrated alumni, in the absence of an actual season? Consider the following. As the keepers of the Stanley Cup - the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Craig Campbell and Phil Pritchard - will tell you, an unofficial rule when the Cup tours on the road is that non-Cup-winners, including friends and family, are not permitted to hold it over their heads. It’s a privilege afforded only to those who have played on an NHL championship team. Quite a meticulous edict when you consider that some other no-no’s pertaining to the Cup include not allowing animals to drink out of it, and not taking it jet-skiing.

Also, listen to the laments of the NHL champions who never got to actually hold the Grail because their finest hockey days were played before the tradition of passing the Cup from player to player at game’s end didn’t begin until Gretzky’s Oilers made it fashionable. In the 100th anniversary video “Lord Stanley’s Cup”, six-time champion Ken Dryden discuss his regret at not having physically held the Cup high at any of the post-game presentations during the Canadiens’ dynasty of the 70’s. Dryden, reminiscing of his childhood dream to hold the Cup only to have it unfulfilled due to a long-standing tradition that only the winning captain accepted the trophy while his teammates watched, ends the video by saying “I’m not watching anymore” before – you guessed it – lifting the Cup and hoisting it over his head.

To grant the chance to lift the Stanley Cup to the most revered NHL alumni who played their entire careers without winning a championship is the fairest solution. They don’t have to be awarded rings, have their names engraved in silver, or be acknowledged as Cup winners in any media guides. In fact, to do so would not only be folly to those champions who have actually toiled over the course of a 100-game season, but may incite an unhealthy intensity that would be far from welcome in an Old-Timers’ game. After all, no one wants to overexert the 56-year-old Park, or give 69-year-old Norm Ullman a heart attack. And do we really want to give Hextall one more reason to go ballistic, say, against Rob Brown for doing a hot-dog ‘windmill’ like in Game #5 of the Patrick Division Final between the Flyers and Penguins?

There definitely isn’t any doubt that the creators of FreeStanley.com are as passionate about the sport of hockey as any other individuals. Certainly there is much merit in the desire to refuse to permit the grievances between the NHL and NHLPA to deprive fans of seeing the Stanley Cup presented.

Be that as it may, why bother mounting legal challenges and tying up court proceedings, ultimately costing taxpayers’ money?

Wouldn’t it be more meaningful to see a challenge for the Cup among players whose names are more than recognizable, but some even enshrined, in hockey’s Hall of Fame?

Most importantly, the presentation for this year’s Cup should be about the guys who deserve one last chance.

We’re talking about Hall-of-Famers. Peter Stastny. Michel Goulet. Bernie Federko.

We’re talking about the heavyweights. Wendel Clark. Dale Hunter.

We’re talking about the small guys that were never given a chance. Dino Ciccarelli. Ray Ferraro. Dirk Graham.

Do you believe in miracles? 1980 U.S. Olympians Mike Ramsey and Mark Johnson could join their gold medal Lake Placid teammate Neal Broten (’95 Cup winner) in saying they knew what it felt like.

What it felt like, to hold the Stanley Cup over your head.

We owe it to them.