(4 - League)

It was months before Jack even thought about the Cup. He didn't know why; it wasn't like the pro teams he spent some of his time guiding weren't all obsessed with it.

(He'd been obsessed with it, once. Before he'd realized that the people he needed to prove his worth to really weren't important after all. And then he'd won it. A lot of times. Now it just seemed like a curiosity. Though still one worth a visit.)

He ended up in the Hall of Fame first, in front of the original Cup in its protective case. He'd been there before, seen it before, but looking at it now, the Cup seemed to almost shimmer. "Huh," said Jack, leaning in for a closer view. His fingers slipped through the glass and before he could pull them back, made contact with the silver chalice.

It bit him.

He yanked his hand away, cradling it, checking for damage. Other than an unpleasant tingling in his fingertips, there didn't seem to be any. But as he looked back up at the Cup, Jack's eyes widened.

Before it had barely shimmered; now the Cup was radiating power, chaotic swirls of colors he couldn't name coruscating across its surface.

Narrowing his eyes, Jack stood watching the artifact for a long while.

It wasn't alive, he eventually concluded. But nonetheless it was very cranky. He had the impression that he'd woken it from a nap that it had been enjoying.

"Sorry," Jack said, and turned away, crossing the room to where the current Stanley Cup stood. It was out in open air; Jack knelt down next to it, fingers hovering, skimming over the bands until he found the spelling errors, or rather their lack, that he was looking for. "Replica Cup," he said with a nod, standing.

Still...

Jack hesitated, then touched the Cup.

This one didn't snap at him. It did rouse at his touch, but the colors only swirled sluggishly. It was even less alive than the original.

"Huh."

Bowing his head in acknowledgement to the Cup, Jack turned away again, and stepped between here and there, to the location of the third Stanley Cup, the Presentation Cup.

It was in Vegas, apparently, sitting in an office at the Aces' arena. Kent, long a part-owner of his old team, had probably been insufferable that they'd won again.

Jack approached the Cup. This one... surely this one, he thought, had to know him. He'd lifted it seven times, had his name engraved on it a couple more as a coach and a part owner in his own right.

But he wasn't expecting the rush of warmth and golden energy that greeted him, as tactile and affectionate as only an old friend could be.

(Jack felt a sudden pang, thinking of Shitty, one of his few friends who was still living. Maybe he could convince Eric to leave a maple-apple pie in their old friend's kitchen?)

Turning his attention back to the Cup, Jack smiled, letting himself pet the living silver. Unlike the other Cups, this one was definitely alive. He could feel whispered memories under his fingertips, the places it had gone, the people it had seen, the effervescence of champagne drunk out of it. He could feel the echo of his father's fingers on it, and a memory of his own, and his grandson's.

This Cup was filled to the brim with nearly two centuries of living energy, and Jack's breath caught when it offered it all to him.

"That's yours," he protested.

The Cup gave him a very clear impression of rolling its eyes. Impressive for an inanimate object.

It was a hockey trophy, it told him. And he was the god of hockey. What was its, was his, to use as he needed or desired.

Jack considered that. Thought about gifts given unasked. Thought about touchstones and lodestones, and the need for new friends, ones who remembered you as an infant, and still offered you respect. "Thank you," he said eventually.

A moment later, he asked, "But what about the wishes?"

The rippling rainbows of light were like laughter as the Cup confessed that half the time, it wasn't even involved in granting them.

Author's Note: I had to write this when I learned about the three different Stanley Cups. And I may have spent way too much time looking at tiny maps, trying to figure out the layout of the Hall of Fame. ^_^;;