Stanley Cup, Conn Smythe Trophy gear up for travels during Final

Once again, they will be the sterling elephants in the room upon which the stars of the day will cast barely a glance.

The Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy will be on display Friday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, players from the Vegas Golden Knights and Florida Panthers, in separate sessions, settling in for Stanley Cup Final Media Day interviews.

Mike Bolt and Bill Wellman of the Hockey Hall of Fame won't need to spend much time buffing fingerprints off the silver because they're likely to be the only ones touching it.

Bolt, a so-called "Keeper of the Cup" who travels extensively with hockey's holy grail, will fly the trophy up from a variety of appearances in South Florida; Wellman, the shrine's coordinator of Outreach and Curatorial Services, will pack the Conn Smythe into its padded case at the Hall in Toronto and fly down from Canada.

The Hockey Hall of Fame's Phil Pritchard (left) and Craig Campbell flank NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and the Stanley Cup at an event in New York City.

The Cup is scheduled to stay in Las Vegas for Games 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup Final on June 3 and 5, then fly back to Fort Lauderdale for Game 3 in Sunrise, Florida, on June 8. After that, consider it "silver body, day to day," its travels to be determined.

The Conn Smythe will be flown back to Toronto on June 3, remaining at the Hall of Fame until it heads back to Nevada or Florida for presentation by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman to the most valuable player of the postseason, just before the Cup is handed to the captain of the winning team.

Phil Pritchard will be home in Toronto, almost freshly back from the IIHF World Championship in Finland. On Wednesday afternoon, the popular Hall of Fame curator and Resource Center vice-president delegated to Wellman the transportation and care of the Conn Smythe.

"This will be a unique one. Anything can happen in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and anything did," Pritchard said of the first "Sun Belt" Final in League history. "The Golden Knights against the Panthers is good for hockey. We wanted to grow the game, and it's growing in the South."

Entrance to the Hockey Hall of Fame's new St. Louis Bar & Grill Arena Zone.

Pritchard and Craig Campbell, the Hall's Resource Centre and Archives manager, will be on T-Mobile or FLA Live ice following Game 4, 5, 6 or 7 for their white-gloved delivery of the Cup and Conn Smythe.

In Toronto, Pritchard is justifiably proud of new exhibits at the Hall of Fame as the shrine slowly rebuilds following the COVID-19 pandemic that for many months locked its doors and, for a time, opened to a trickle of customers.

The Stanley Cup Final is the unofficial start of the summer season at the shrine, and Pritchard hopes that visitors will be plentiful.

"Things are slowly coming back," he said. "I'd like to say that we're back at the numbers we were, but this summer will really tell."

Boston Garden's 1954 Zamboni and a display detailing the evolution of equipment.

The Hall of Fame truly is an organic, hands-on museum. Displays are regularly freshened to offer fans a new experience, no matter how many times they've visited.

There are new featured areas dedicated to "The Changing Face of Hockey," a spotlight on diversity in hockey with a focus on groundbreakers and trailblazers; and "The Women's Hockey Story," a sweeping look at the women's game through artifacts and stories about influential individuals and teams that have had a major impact.

A new focal point is the St. Louis Bar & Grill Arena Zone, which is the gateway to the NHLPA Game Time model rink and all of its interactive activities.

The spacious Arena Zone includes Franchise Alley, with a spotlight on each of the 32 NHL teams and their minor-league affiliates. Visitors will find fascinating new displays charting the evolution of equipment, and more.

The registration plaque of the Boston Bruins' 1954 Zamboni machine, and the front of the ice-resurfacer.

As well:

• "Vintage Hockey Hub" displays the largest jewel in the Hall of Fame's extensive collection -- the first Zamboni machine used in the NHL in 1954, as well as other artifacts from the famous so-called Original Six arenas.

• "Silverware" displays more than 25 historic non-NHL championship trophies, including the Allan, Calder, Clarkson and Memorial Cups.

Pritchard revels in celebrating the history of hockey as extensively as he can through the Hall. He's especially proud of the Arena Zone area, its planning and execution stopped, like so much, by the pandemic.

The shrine has had the Bruins' historic 1954 Zamboni machine mothballed for years, and finally it's been brought it to light.

"It's the sixth one ever made, so we reached out to the Zamboni company to have it prepared to be put on display," Pritchard said. "Back in early 2020, we started thinking about this whole 'Original Six' idea -- how much the arenas in those cities meant during the six-team era of 1942-67. They all went on to the 1990s before they were replaced.

The Montreal Forum is one of the NHL's so-called Original Six arenas celebrated in the new Hall of Fame exhibit.

"Our thought was to show visitors things beyond the players on the rink. It's the stadiums, the arenas, that told the stories back then. Maple Leaf Gardens, the Montreal Forum, New York's Madison Square Garden, Boston Garden, Detroit's Olympia Stadium, Chicago Stadium … those six arenas meant so much to hockey, but they housed so many other memories. Those buildings were a staple in their cities."

Indeed, the six grand barns were home for the circus, concerts, political rallies, scout jamborees, wrestling, boxing, dog shows and a whole lot more.

"We knew we had the Boston Zamboni," Pritchard said. "We had the old boards and garbage cans and doors from Chicago Stadium, turnstiles from Maple Leaf Gardens, seats from the arenas.

"We asked ourselves, 'How do we make this into a story about the great old arenas of hockey?' We have a marquee at the entrance, and we've tried to make the area historical but also entertaining and educational, to tell the stories.

A very small part of the Hockey Hall of Fame's celebration of the history of the game.

"It's great when a parent or grandparent comes through and tells the kids or grandkids, 'I remember this …,' because it brings back a lot of memories. From the guys at Zamboni to the people who have contributed things along the way, at the end of the day, we're only as good as our donors are. We thank them for making us, in so many ways, what we are."

For now, Pritchard will enjoy a rare moment to sit at home and watch the Stanley Cup Final begin its short or marathon series to decide the NHL's 2023 champion.

He'll know that hockey's most famous trophy, and its playoff companion, will spend a lonely day at T-Mobile Arena on Friday, popular with the media and others but fully ignored by the two teams that have battled long and hard for the right to win them both.

The evolution of goalie equipment is part of the new displays at the Hockey Hall of Fame.

"Just the history of it, seeing all the names on it, what it represents," Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said of the Stanley Cup on Media Day in 2017, both trophies a few stick-lengths away at Pittsburgh's PPG Paints Arena.

"When you look at the Stanley Cup, [you think of] what it's gone through. If it could speak, the stories it could tell. ... Even people who don't necessarily know what it is, when they see it, it commands that attention. That's pretty special."

Fourteen nights later, at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena, Crosby was happy to take the Stanley Cup in his arms and take it for a skate around the rink.

It was his second consecutive championship and the second straight season he'd accept the Conn Smythe Trophy. And once again, Crosby was on speaking terms with the two historic trophies.

Top photo: Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy stand as a TV backdrop for the 2017 Stanley Cup Media Day at Pittsburgh's PPG Paints Arena. Shelley Lipton/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images