Athletes always chase the ring
Photo: Jorden Dixon
Bryce Forbes
Sports Editor
It’s all about the ring.
Every athlete around wants, begs and fights for the chance at getting one.
The Super Bowl Ring.
The Stanley Cup Ring.
The World Series Ring.
It shows that for one season, all of the hard work, resilience and punishment was worth it.
“It’s all about getting the ring,” said Charles Woodson, a Green Bay Packers player after winning the Super Bowl last year. “Every franchise that wins title, it’s all about ring. It seals the deal. We’ll enjoy it tonight.”
The Cougars women’s volleyball team recently received their National Championship rings.
As well, the men’s hockey team got their own rings after winning last year’s ACAC title. The come complete with a slight backhanded shot at the SAIT Trojans with 1-0 printed on one side.
That’s the beautiful thing about championship rings — they can never be taken away. It’s the constant reminder of what extreme hardwork, determination and leadership will result in when it all comes together.
Dan Gable, a world-famous wrestling coach from the University of Iowa once said: “Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination and a hard to find alloy called guts.”
THE BEAUTY OF THE RING
When a team wins a Stanley Cup, each player get one day with hockey’s Holy Grail, usually spending it back in their home town, hobnobbing around with the people they grew up with who pushed them.
They’ll take the nearly obligatory picture spooning of the Cup while the wife looks neglected. They’ll hold it up so many times their arms nearly fall off.
It’s a once-in-a-lifetime day they will never forget.
But they don’t get to keep it.
That’s where the rings come in.
Weeks later, usually just before the start of the next season, they’ll finally receive their ring and bawh gawd, it’s the most gawdy piece of bling out there, with each team trying to one up last year’s team.
On Oct. 4, the Boston Bruins received their rings after knocking off the Vancouver Canucks.
Care to guess how many little diamonds were in it? Over 300.
However, it paled in comparison to the Chicago Blackhawks from the year before, who had over 400 diamonds totalling around eight carats.
So while their day with the Stanley Cup is usually one of the best days of their lives, usually on par with the birth of their third child, it’s those $30,000 rings that is something concrete, something that will never be taken away, something that will always remind them of every second on their run to the Stanley Cup.
The goal was simple when the Green Bay Packers received their Super Bowl rings in June.
“They wanted big and they wanted bling,” said Mark Murphy, the Packers’ president. “We were successful in that.”
RING SCARCITY
Players will go through 20 years trying to figure out what they need to do to finally get that ring.
To finally win it, some will get traded (see Bourque, Ray) some will continue to stick it out in one city, one franchise hoping eventually it will all come together (see Bettis, Jerome) while other will take cheap deals on already loaded teams (see every member of the Miami Heat not named James, Wade or Bosh). Alright, the formula isn’t perfect.
It comes easy for others.
Montreal Canadiens great Jean Beliveau has nearly as many Stanley Cup rings as he does fingers and toes with 17 in total — 10 as a player before adding seven more as an executive.
It almost seems though, the ring will finally make a player whole.
John Elway was a laballed a choker through three Super Bowls before finally winning two in his last two seasons.
Similarly, it plagued Peyton Manning until he picked up his own ring.
Dan Marino is always looked at as one of the greatest quarterbacks ever, holding the all-time greatest season in quarterbacking history. But the common knock against him is he never won the Super Bowl, only getting one chance early in his career.
But in the end, the championship ring is the ultimate trump tool, helping to prove one player is better than the other.
When Jeremy Roenick was beaking Patrick Roy during the 1996 playoffs, Roy came back with “I can’t really hear what Jeremy says, because I’ve got my two Stanley Cup rings plugging my ears.”
Boom, roasted.
