Prince of Wales Trophy

History

The Prince of Wales Trophy was first announced in December 1925. It was sponsored by the then Prince of Wales, Prince Edward, and thus bore the Prince of Wales' feathers and the shield of the Royal Coat of Arms of Canada. Costing $2,500, the trophy was said to be in the possession of the league champion, duplicating the already existing O'Brien Cup for that purpose. To introduce the new trophy into the NHL, it was awarded as a place keeper to the winner of the first game played in Madison Square Garden, held on December 15, 1925 (Montreal Canadiens 3 at New York Americans 1). The trophy was held onto by the Canadiens until the end of the season, when it was presented, for the first time, for its founding purposeto honour the NHL playoff champion. While the new trophy was in their possession, the Canadienswho had been the O'Brien Cup-winning NHL playoff championships in and retroactively engraved their name on the trophy for those seasons.

The Prince of Wales Trophy was then awarded to the NHL playoff champion in and , along with the pre-existing O'Brien Cup, before that team would go on to face the Western Hockey League (WHL) champion for the Stanley Cup at the end of those seasons. From the in on, the trophy was awarded to the champion of the American Division of the NHL, while the O'Brien Cup was presented to the Canadian Division champion, until 1938, when, after the NHL reverted to a single division, the Wales Trophy was made the award for the overall regular season champion.

With the expansion of the NHL in 1967, and the creation of the West Division, the Wales Trophy was given to the team that finished in first place in the East Division, during the regular season. When the league formed two conferences in 1974, the trophy transferred to the team that finished with the best regular season record in the Wales Conference, until 1981. The NHL changed its playoff format so that the two conference playoff champions would meet for the Stanley Cup. The Prince of Wales Trophy was presented to the Wales Conference playoff champions. In the summer of 1993 Wales Conference was renamed the Eastern Conference. Prince of Wales trophy has been awarded to the Eastern Conference playoff champions since the 1993–94 season.

A superstition that is prevalent among many of today's NHL players is that no player should either touch or hoist the Wales (Eastern Conference champion) or Clarence S. Campbell (Western Conference champion) Trophies after they have won the conference playoffs; these players feel that the Stanley Cup is the true championship trophy and thus it should be the only trophy that they should be hoisting. Instead of touching the conference trophy, the captain of the winning team merely poses (usually looking solemn) with the trophy, and sometimes, the entire team poses as well. However, there have been other teams who have ignored the superstition and hoisted the conference trophies, sometimes going on to win the Cup anyway. Most notably, the Pittsburgh Penguins who were considered the most successful team to touch the trophy, winning the Stanley Cup five times after touching it.

The NHL abolished the conferences and re-aligned the league into four new divisions for the 2020–21 NHL season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the semifinal round of the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs was contested between the winners of the divisional playoffs and they were seeded according to their regular season record. Initially the trophy was not going to be awarded, but it was later decided that the trophy would be awarded to the winner of the Stanley Cup semifinals series between the East and Central divisions, eventually being the New York Islanders and the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Winners

;Key

• – Defunct team
• – Eventual Stanley Cup champions
• a – Engraved in 1925–26.

Original winner

• December 15, 1925 – Montreal Canadiens (Canadiens 3, New York Americans 1)

1923–1925 (pre-donation) engravings

The Canadiens were league champions for these seasons.

NHL playoff champions (1925–1927)

American Division regular season champions (1927–1938)

Regular season champions (1938–1967)

East Division regular season champions (1967–1974)

Wales Conference regular season champions (1974–1981)

Wales Conference playoffs champions (1981–1993)

Eastern Conference playoffs champions (1993–2020)

Stanley Cup semifinals (2020–2021)

Eastern Conference playoffs champions (2021–present)

References

Notes

Citations

References

1. "Prince of Wales Trophy".
2. (December 7, 1925). "Prince of Wales Sponsors New Cup: Trophy Costing $2,500 Will Be Emblematic of National Hockey League Title". New York Times.
3. (2008). "The National Hockey League Official Guide & Record Book 2009". Dan Diamond & Associates, Inc..
4. (December 16, 1925). "New York Beaten by Canadiens 3–1". The Globe.
5. Legends of Hockey.net. "History of the Prince of Wales Trophy".
6. (September 18, 2020). "Lightning Win Conference Final and Touch The Trophy; No Supersitition Here".
7. Kaplan, Emily. (May 28, 2011). "Conference trophies: to touch, or not to touch?". NHL.com.
8. Coffey, Phil. (September 2010). "NHL.com - Ice Age: Having another trophy in mind".
9. O'Donnell, Kelly. (May 31, 2015). "How Real is the Wales Trophy and Campbell Bowl Jinx?".
10. Cotsonika, Nicholas. (May 14, 2021). "Stanley Cup Playoffs: Key questions, answers". NHL.
11. (June 10, 2021). "#NHLStats: Live Updates – June 10, 2021".