posted 05-30-2009 07:00 PM            

According to a 2004 article about her in the St. Petersburg Times, Ms. St. Jacques has only made one engraving error which she subsequently corrected. It is the only correction ever made to the cup. Previous typos remain as part of the cup's history.

posted 06-07-2009 05:03 PM            

Since Adrienne Clarkson is a strong supporter of Canada's North and Inuit Art, she wanted the cup to reflect these personal sentiments. Now working as a teacher for the New Brunswick College of Art and Design, Beth Biggs has strong relations with metal artists of Nunavut Arctic College, where she had taught for eight years. She decided to collaborate with Inuit artists. The cup is of conventional design, Beth raised the base, but had the cup itself spun by a Montreal firm. The trophy "lives off" the beautiful engravings depicting flowers of the provinces and territories of Canada, ancient Inuit masks and a most striking image of the Inuit deity Sedna, who is seen here, holding a puck and a hockeystick. It is also engraved with Mme Clarkson's coat of arms.

After being celebrated the artists unveiled the cup at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto 2006. Everything seemed to point to a happy outcome, Madame Clarkson - who had not yet paid for the cup - wanted to hand it over to Hockey Canada to be awarded to the winning team of the two main women's leagues. But when the purchase and hand-over should have been completed everything suddenly fell apart. Beth Biggs insists on a licensing agreement that would involve royalties for the intellectual property of her work and that of three Inuit artists beyond the original cost price (a piece of revenue from any marketing Hockey Canada might do with the cup, such as posters and T-shirts), while Mme Clarkson believes that once the agreed upon fee has been paid, the cup would be hers to do with it as she pleases. Hockey Canada only wants to accept the cup if it comes with no strings attached. Unfortunately the commission was based on verbal agreements and not on a written contract. Now lawyers, instead of hockey teams, will fight it out. The dispute is of course of great interest to the artists' community here.

Last I heard of the trophy it was resting on a shelf at the Royal Ontario Museum - all in all a sad story.

And by the way the Stanley cup is a "jazzed" up conventional rose bowl, which Lord Stanley bought for a very small sum (I have now forgotten where).

posted 06-08-2009 04:57 PM            

This is a link to a picture of Beth Biggs and the cup,and more about the happy end of the story.

Clarkson Cup