Vegas, Carolina give conference trophies cold shoulder, but someone has to lose the Stanley Cup

The Stanley Cup Final matchup is set after the Carolina Hurricanes put away the Montreal Canadiens in a dominant Game 5 performance, and they will now take on the Vegas Golden Knights.

But we have a problem: neither the Hurricanes nor the Golden Knights touched their respective conference championship trophies.

Guys… you can’t both win the Cup.

This superstition is going to fail for someone.

There’s a longstanding tradition that you should never touch a conference championship trophy — the Prince of Wales Trophy for the Eastern Conference and the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl for the Western Conference — because they’re not the ultimate prize. The Stanley Cup is.

Of course, there are many examples of teams not touching the Cup and losing or grabbing a big handful of a conference trophy and winning it. But it’s kind of weird with the Golden Knights and Hurricanes because they have the same records when it comes to touching or not touching a conference trophy.

Let’s start with Vegas. Captain Mark Stone steered clear of touching the Clarence Campbell Bowl, much like he did in 2023 when Vegas went on to beat the Florida Panthers for the Stanley Cup.

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But, in 2018, when the Golden Knights made it to the Cup Final in their inaugural season, de facto captain Deryk Engelland not only touched it but picked it up and skated it around.

So, for those keeping score at home, Vegas is 1-1 in Cup Finals, losing when they touched the trophy and winning when they didn’t.

Now, this is also Carolina’s third trip to the Final in franchise history, the first of which came in 2002.

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They beat the Toronto Maple Leafs in six games, and captain Ron Francis touched the Prince of Wales Trophy.

In the Finals, they lost to the Detroit Red Wings in five games, but it could have less to do with trophy-touching voodoo and more to do with Detroit having one of the best rosters in NHL history.

Seriously. Go look it up. It’s insane. Yzerman, Hull, Lidstrom, Federov, Chelios, Datsyuk, Robitaille and more.

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But, in 2006, after winning Game 7 against the Buffalo Sabres, then-captain Rod Brind’Amour did not touch the trophy, and the Canes went on to beat the Edmonton Oilers for the Stanley Cup.

Now, in 2026, they steered clear of it once again, perhaps because of some input from their head coach.

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So, we’ll see how this works out because one team has to buck this superstition trend.

The game is Tuesday night in Raleigh.