Lateral Trophies

I was reading an article on the New York Times website recently, and spied an article that detailed the winner of this season's Stanley Cup, which, for the uninitiated, is for ice hockey. To be more accurate, though, I didn't spy the article as much as a bloke holding a preposterously large trophy above his head. It really was stupidly large and shiny. About half the team could have stripped off, dived in and bathed in the damn thing. Mind you, I reckon they'd have contracted silver poisoning by the time they climbed out.

Consider in comparison, the trophy (if you can call it that) known as "The Ashes". It is a tiny scrap of ceramic that holds a teaspoon of dust. Now that's a trophy. It is the kind of trophy all sports should have. It is hereby proposed that no sport be allowed to have a trophy that fails to comply to the following set of criteria:

• It can be held with one hand;
• It can be completely hidden from view with two hands;
• It must not cost more than ten Australian dollars to make;
• It cannot be made of metal, unless the metal is tin;
• Ideally, it ought not look like a trophy at all, but rather should look like, perhaps, a plate, letter-box, watering can or secateurs (all very small, of course);
• It could actually be a plate, letter-box, watering can or secateurs (all very small, of course);
• It must be of a quality that someone's Grandfather could make - after suffering a stroke; and
• It must contain dust, sand, soil or some such that possesses high symbolic value but no material value.

I've had it with sportsmen hoisting gold-plated water tanks above their heads. It's time for a bit of modesty.

With one exception. The World Cup (the real one, not the cricket, rugby or table-tennis varieties) can stand. It counts for something.