ABA Championship Trophy

[williamhughes11]

I read in a previous post that Vermont had to buy their own trophy after winning the coveted ABA championship last year. With this in mind, I thought about the possibility of a way to help the ABA and have a good laugh at the same time.

The NHL has the Stanley Cup, the NFL has the Vince Lombardi Trophy, and at least the NBA and MLB give trophies to their champions. If the ABA won't spend the money to buy a trophy for the champion of it's tournament, perhaps a corporate sponsor could buy one. It could be a generic trophy made at great expense to no one, but the sponsor could name the trophy and require that the name be used in all marketing materials and presentations (including the championship game). Assuming none of the proud sponsors of the ABA would offer to buy a trophy, what would it take for OurSports Central to take up a collection to buy one for next season's champion (assuming there is a next season.)

Imagine the look on Joe's face when he has to give the OurSports Central Cup to the ABA champion. :D

[a1sports]

Imagine his look when he gives the....PBL or CBA Cup to the rec league winner.

or

The Hester Memorial Cup.
The Toledo-Toledo-Toledo - Cup
The Colours Cup
The Rochester Cup
The Doyle Trophy
The JAlozza Cup
The "11 Law-suits" Cup
The Toupee Trophy
The Play-on, division of Turner Cup
The 10k Cup
I dare say.....The A1 Cup
The "No stats" cup
The ALex Cup....how appropriate
The "Garbage" Cup
The " Chichester rules" Cup
The Expansion Cup
The " Soon to leave ABA " Cup
The Dirty, Rotten, Mean-spirited Trophy
The Utica Wreckers Cup


lets get creative fellow poster !! please add suggestions

[williamhughes11]

How about....

The Halifax Chronicle Herald Trophy (What's that gesture it seems to be making?)

The Andre Livingston Cup (Why is a finger pointing on each hand?)

The NBA Mother's Trophy (presented by Allen Iverson's and Elton Brand's mothers.)

The Lipton "Cup-a-Soup" Cup

The Nissin "Cup Noodles" Cup - Styrofoam with dried ramen.

The Vermont Frost Heaves Invitational Trophy

The 'You Won It, You Buy It" Trophy

[panchess]

...how come there aren't any trophies, of all things, on the ABA Superstore...

[Paul S]

I like the OurSportsCentral Cup.................

selling a replica on the superstore beside boxes of tampons and overpriced GPS systes will be great.

[utahstarsticketholder]

I could donate a trophy! I just pry the name plate off my daughters Junior Jazz Participation Trophy and tape a paper with "ABA" Champion on to the front. Won't even charge Alex or Ole Joe. jack

[TheStandard]

I could donate a trophy! I just pry the name plate off my daughters Junior Jazz Participation Trophy and tape a paper with "ABA" Champion on to the front. Won't even charge Alex or Ole Joe. jack

How About :

The Tainted Cup
The We are #66 Cup (A Rib at the NIT winner when we say you're #65)
The Satan Cup
The Sucker Cup
The Howard Judah Cup
The Arena On The Hill Cup
The McMuffin Cup
The Mildew Cup
The Brothel Cup
The Chichester Cup
The Toupee Cup
Tha Gwizzlie Kup
The Embry Malone "Crackhead" Memorial Cup
The Bill Corona Memorial Trophy
The Unethical Cup
The Ask The CEO Trophy
The Cracker Jack Box Memorial Cup
The Maple Syrup Cup
The Chris Munson "You're Garabage" Memorial Trophy
The Standard "You're an A-Hole" Trophy
The A1Sports Steak Sauce Trophy
The Cowbell Trophy
The We played 5 games and we won the championship trophy
The "We Go to Quebec" Trophy
The Denise Pulphus Memorial Cup
The Mother Williams "Stuck" Cup

[SignGuyDino]

Ahem...THIS is a trophy...

http://roadsofstone.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/steven-gerrard-liverpool-champions-league-2005-istanbul.jpg

[williamhughes11]

No argument here, as that trophy is responsible for three of my biggest sports memories.

1. I still kick myself for copying that match (2005 Champions League Final) to my DVR, reading on the BBC website that AC Milan was up 3-0 at halftime, going home and immediately erasing it without bothering to find out what happened. Liverpool is my second favorite soccer team.

2. I just got off of jury duty the day of the 1999 Final. I remember watching the entire match, seeing Bayern Munich (my favorite team in the world) up 1-0 at 90 minutes and yelling at the TV "3 minutes, don't f&^& up!" D'oh! (Manchester United scored two goals to win it.)

3. The 2001 Final. I had to sit in my office and agonize as Yahoo and UEFA.com did not update for 10 minutes during the penalties. Needless to say, I was rather happy with the outcome (Bayern Munich wins.) I had tickets for the exhibition at Giants Stadium between them and the Metrostars on that Saturday. After seeing the "C" team show up, I decided to book a week in Munich that took place over Thanksgiving week. I went despite 9/11, and the sound of Olympic Stadium the night I arrived for a Champions League match against Manchester United is still the loudest man-made noise I have ever witnessed.

[TheStandard]

http://www.hockey.thetazzone.com/images/Stanley_Cup.jpg Now thats the Trophy

[williamhughes11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Premiere_Coupe_Stanley_1893.jpg

I've seen the original bowl at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto and the current one on several occasions. That trophy is beyond cool. :cool:

[Chuck the Writer]

This is a trophy -

http://members.aol.com/boardwalk7/trophy2.jpg

I should know... this was the Eastern Hockey League's Atlantic City Boardwalk Trophy, given to the winner of the EHL playoffs (1933-1973). It was later found in a tavern storage shed; I was able to bring it to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, where it currently sits on display in the HHoF's North American zone.

That's not the only trophy I found - I also recovered the old Eastern Basketball Association's Governor's Trophy, a replica of which is now handed out to the CBA's regular-season quarterpoint champion.

[TheStandard]

http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/72027132.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF193875DCB1DD8387ABB3D7A5C210698EB1E A40A659CEC4C8CB6

The Lamar Hunt US Open Cup

[misenern]

This is a trophy -

http://members.aol.com/boardwalk7/trophy2.jpg

I should know... this was the Eastern Hockey League's Atlantic City Boardwalk Trophy, given to the winner of the EHL playoffs (1933-1973). It was later found in a tavern storage shed; I was able to bring it to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, where it currently sits on display in the HHoF's North American zone.

That's not the only trophy I found - I also recovered the old Eastern Basketball Association's Governor's Trophy, a replica of which is now handed out to the CBA's regular-season quarterpoint champion.

How did you find them?

[formerlyknownasfells]

How did you find them?

Chuck knows where Hoffa is. Don't put anything past him.......

[Paul S]

William Hughes:

To be honest I don't know what was the bigger comeback I've ever seen. The Stephen Gerrard Liverpool scoring 3 to tie Milan or Manchester Uniteds 2 goal outburst in extra time. The ManU thing was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen in sports. I'd given up hope for them to be honest. Down 1-0 at 90 minutes and they won it was astounding. Football can be so cruel was the headline of the Deutscher Allemanger

For the ABA

What about the 10K Cup?

[Chuck the Writer]

How did you find them?

In 1993, I was writing for that godawful minor league hockey publication Hockey Ink! and was working on a story about a group from Syracuse who hoped to bring the bankrupt Hamilton Canucks to Syracuse for the 1993-94 season. The person I spoke with, Brian Elwell, played on the 1973 EHL champion Syracuse Blazers, and told me that he still had one of the trophies in his possession - the EHL shut down after the 1973 season (it split into the Southern Hockey League and the North American Hockey League - it would go through a couple of more alphabet combinations, but some of its teams can be traced to the current ECHL), and of the three trophies of playoff supremacy in the EHL, he kept the Boardwalk Trophy. He displayed it at his bar Elwell's for years, then put it in the back room with some beer taps and old neon signs. When I asked him about the trophy, he said he always wanted to bring it to the Hockey Hall of Fame, where all trophies belong after their leagues shut down, but he thought people might accuse him of stealing the chalice. In exchange for a story about the trophy and its whereabouts, I agreed to transport the Boardwalk Trophy to the HHOF, which I did in June 1994.

The original EPBL Governor's Trophy is still on display at a steak sandwich shop in Allentown PA, so the one that the CBA currently hands out is a carefully reconstructed replica of the original chalice.

I also know where the original Atlantic Coast Hockey League championship trophy is (the ACHL lasted from 1981 to 1987); the owner of the Virginia Lancers still has it and he showed it to me in 1996 at his offices in Roanoke VA. I couldn't convince him to let me courier it to the HOF, but hey sometimes you gotta work with what you can.

Finding that Atlantic City Boardwalk Trophy was one of my most satisfying moments with Hockey Ink! (the other was getting the magazine to put Jody Gage of the Rochester Americans on the front cover as he was retiring that season). It's one of the few satisfying moments; the magazine was poorly run, poorly financed, sporadically printed, and worst of all, used all types of stringers - newspaper writers, freelancers, booster club fans - and paid every one of them poorly. And some of those booster club fans used their Hockey Ink! press credentials to get into locker rooms and bug players for autographed sticks, or in some cases, to get VERY close to players - if you know what I mean (I believe the term for such people are "puck bunnies").

It was extremely depressing watching articles I wrote (that were time-sensitive) not get printed for months or even a year after they became "old news." I also hated watching my checks bounce or have them arrive without a signature. It was also depressing in that, as a reporter for that magazine, I was held accountable for its continual monkey shines, with a level of professionalism that sorta equals our buddy on Holiday Drive.

[williamhughes11]

William Hughes:

To be honest I don't know what was the bigger comeback I've ever seen. The Stephen Gerrard Liverpool scoring 3 to tie Milan or Manchester Uniteds 2 goal outburst in extra time. The ManU thing was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen in sports. I'd given up hope for them to be honest. Down 1-0 at 90 minutes and they won it was astounding. Football can be so cruel was the headline of the Deutscher Allemanger

For the ABA

What about the 10K Cup?

I would have to say from a purely soccer point of view it would be the ManU comeback. I remember going out to get some pizza for dinner wearing my Bayern Munich shirt and passing a man on the street who was wearing a ManU shirt. I gave him a thumbs up and said "Congratulations, your team earned it."

My list was done as a train of thought rather than in any order.

I can see the 10K Cup. It's a cup with 10 K's circling around it.

[bomp]

The Championship trophy should be the horse's ass one I used to have, That would be fitting for this situation.

The winning owner would get the hint.

[Paul S]

Seeing as what drove Halifax from the league was the Bahama No-Shows and then the Vision had to wear Team Canada Hockey T-shirts why don't we present a trophy to Joe?

We could simply mount a ice hockey puck onto the base of some old, chipped block of wood and put a little handwritten piece of paper on it saying "Joe Newman, winner of the 2008 PUCK OFF Award"

[misenern]

In 1993, I was writing for that godawful minor league hockey publication Hockey Ink! and was working on a story about a group from Syracuse who hoped to bring the bankrupt Hamilton Canucks to Syracuse for the 1993-94 season. The person I spoke with, Brian Elwell, played on the 1973 EHL champion Syracuse Blazers, and told me that he still had one of the trophies in his possession - the EHL shut down after the 1973 season (it split into the Southern Hockey League and the North American Hockey League - it would go through a couple of more alphabet combinations, but some of its teams can be traced to the current ECHL), and of the three trophies of playoff supremacy in the EHL, he kept the Boardwalk Trophy. He displayed it at his bar Elwell's for years, then put it in the back room with some beer taps and old neon signs. When I asked him about the trophy, he said he always wanted to bring it to the Hockey Hall of Fame, where all trophies belong after their leagues shut down, but he thought people might accuse him of stealing the chalice. In exchange for a story about the trophy and its whereabouts, I agreed to transport the Boardwalk Trophy to the HHOF, which I did in June 1994.

The original EPBL Governor's Trophy is still on display at a steak sandwich shop in Allentown PA, so the one that the CBA currently hands out is a carefully reconstructed replica of the original chalice.

I also know where the original Atlantic Coast Hockey League championship trophy is (the ACHL lasted from 1981 to 1987); the owner of the Virginia Lancers still has it and he showed it to me in 1996 at his offices in Roanoke VA. I couldn't convince him to let me courier it to the HOF, but hey sometimes you gotta work with what you can.

Finding that Atlantic City Boardwalk Trophy was one of my most satisfying moments with Hockey Ink! (the other was getting the magazine to put Jody Gage of the Rochester Americans on the front cover as he was retiring that season). It's one of the few satisfying moments; the magazine was poorly run, poorly financed, sporadically printed, and worst of all, used all types of stringers - newspaper writers, freelancers, booster club fans - and paid every one of them poorly. And some of those booster club fans used their Hockey Ink! press credentials to get into locker rooms and bug players for autographed sticks, or in some cases, to get VERY close to players - if you know what I mean (I believe the term for such people are "puck bunnies").

It was extremely depressing watching articles I wrote (that were time-sensitive) not get printed for months or even a year after they became "old news." I also hated watching my checks bounce or have them arrive without a signature. It was also depressing in that, as a reporter for that magazine, I was held accountable for its continual monkey shines, with a level of professionalism that sorta equals our buddy on Holiday Drive.

Good stuff man, that's pretty interesting.

[The Sweeper]

Antonio Burks with this season's championship trophy (I think Quebec paid for the trophy as well, but have no concrete proof).

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b300/The_Sweeper/Picture018.jpg

[utahstarsticketholder]

That's the winners trophy!!! My kids soccer trophy is bigger than that! Wow this isn't even a rec league! jack

[wellington]

http://www.china-manufacturer-directory.com/picture/rubber-plunger-13167.jpg

2008-09 ABA Trophy

[Paul S]

HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA thats a good one Wellington.

The inscription on the above trophy would be "use this to help your owner get back the money he has flushed down the toilet"