Today, as I was biking down the street, I saw a team of HS-age basketball players walking back from some awards ceremony. They were each carrying a trophy 4 or 5 feet tall. I shouted congratulations to them (one mumbled back a “Thanks”) but secretly I was embarassed for them and their gaudy and laughably gigantic trophies.
When I was a kid a 2-foot tall trophy was a whopper. It looked like a winning trophy should look. Trophies that are 2 feet tall (or less) generally have decent aesthetic proportions. Today’s skyscraper trophies look ugly and have horrible proportions. They have these towering stilts that just support a dinky little gold basketball man on top. And don’t get me started on all that blingy, glittery mylar trim.
Grade inflation may be out of hand these days, but, IMO, it’s nothing compared to “trophy inflation.”
In closing, the saddest part of my story is, judging from the mopey behavior of the team, they probably did not actually win the competition, so some other bunch of players was probably walking around with even more garish, tacky trophies than the ones I saw.
Maybe its like finding the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Maybe the winners walked away with an extremely modest, non-gilded chalis.
Giant trophies remind me of the one that a young Daniel LaRussa after he single-handedly defeated Cobra Kai. Daniel LaRussa was before trophy inflation AND he had a kick all to his own AND he had…the song… …“you are the best…around…nothing’s gonna ever take you down, you are the best…arouuuund!..”
Long story short, if a giant trophy comes along with all this, back that truckload of gaudy trophies right here, baby.
The local sports club has been holding tennis tournaments for over 30 years. A few years back, someone in the board of directors wanted to change the trophies because they weren’t impressive enough. Another person told her “they’re not the FIFA Cup, you know - these go to people’s houses, not to some soccer team’s huge displays!”
Since the second person has competed at the international level and even got to kiss a Davis Cup “salad bowl” once, his opinion prevailed. Phew!
Ironic, given that both the original Jules Rimet trophy, and the current World Cup, are both little more than a foot high. (Having said that, I don’t imagine many tennis club trophies use 5kg of gold…)
I received about 20 trophies from my time driving stock cars. The biggest was about 3 feet tall for a 3rd place finish in the season points standings. Last fall I purged most of them, keeping the parts that had my name and the rest of the stuff was given to a local trophy shop. I saved only 3 of them, a 1983 Spanaway Speedway roll over trophy, one for winning an open competition street stock race at Portland Speedway and a 3rd place trophy from a NASCAR tour race at South Sound Speedway. As can be seen in this picture,, they are buried behind a bunch of other stuff now.
But the Stanley Cup is proportional to its importance. The world’s best pro hovkey team should get to hoist a huge trophy. I think what the OP is saying is that it’s kind of silly for the Bruce County Pee-Wee House League champion to be awarded a similarly enormous trophy.
It’s kind of like the new trend towards holding elaborate graduation ceremonies for kids finishing kindergarten. Going overboard in the celebration of the mundane becomes self-parody. I was happy I beat “Knights of the Old Republic” but I would have felt a bit embarassed if my wife had arranged a victory parade.
I just wanted to pop in and voice my agreement, but also I wanted to add that I consider the Vince Lombardi Trophy to be the very essence of everything a trophy should be. Simple, elegant, not too large, and looking at it leaves no doubt what it’s for.
Trophies have been upscaled for all the new 20,000 sq. ft. houses going up everywhere. You need a five foot trophy for that 2,000 sq. ft. room with 40 foot high ceilings…
Those four teens probably had to walk home, because the trophies didn’t fit into the SUV.
And regarding the Stanley Cup, by itself the trophy – the cup – is rather nicely proportioned. It is the ongoing addition of rings of engraved plates that has made it look so goofy and big. Personally, I like the idea that every winning player is represented, but there’s no denying that the policy of adding ring after ring is ruining the trophy’s appearance.
The trophy has not changed in size in a very, very long time. As they add rings on the bottom, they take the top ones away. The rings that get removed are then put on display in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. The most recent winners’ names are from the 1950s, IIRC. The Cup is essentially fixed forever at its current size.
I used to think trophies actually meant something when i would win them. Until the day came when i found out there are TROPHY STORES where you can BUY them and have the guy working there engrave ANYTHING I WANT. Slick Roenick beat Bruce Lee in a thumb-wrestling match without even going to the event. And it could have been up to 6’6 but the cost of it was way more than i felt like dishing out.
I agree completely with your point, but let’s be honest: if your wife had put her hair up in cinammon rolls and hung a medal around your neck, you would have liked it.
I didn’t know that either. I agree with stuyguy’s approach: they should lop off all the rings and put them in the Hockey Hall of Fame, and then mount the Cup on a block of crystal or something, with a plaque bearing only the current holders’ names. Each year after the Cup final, the NHL could place a new plaque on the Cup and retire the old one to the HHoF as well.
There are some trophies that are simply icons: The Stanley Cup, The Lombardi Trophy, The Heisman, The Masters’ Green Jacket, The World Cup. Those are what they are, size immaterial.
I have no problem when another major sporting event seeks to commission an artist to develop a similarly iconic trophy to symbolize their event. Some are ugly to be sure, but the sponsors put in the effort. Even an oversize silver tray or cup can be quite servicable as a trophy.
On the other hand, when you award the largest confabulation of turned wood dowels and gaudy gold-chromed plastic figures that the local trophy shop can screw together (and give the second and third place winners just slightly smaller assemblages), it is just tacky.
I agree with stuyguy’s approach: they should lop off all the rings and put them in the Hockey Hall of Fame, and then mount the Cup on a block of crystal or something, with a plaque bearing only the current holders’ names. Each year after the Cup final, the NHL could place a new plaque on the Cup and retire the old one to the HHoF as well.