IOWA CITY — For the third time in six years, the Stanley Cup found its final residency in Chicago, Monday night.
A day later, the University of Iowa football team announced he was coming to play for the Hawkeyes.
In a statement released by the football offices, Tuesday afternoon, the program announced that it had received a 10th commitment for the Class of 2016 from one Stanley Cup of Montreal, Canada.
Head coach Kirk Ferentz confirmed the commitment in a conference call later that night after the football offices were flooded with calls from local and national media.
"He’s coming to the Hawks," Ferentz said. "I hadn’t really heard of him until last night, but you could say the same thing about Dallas Clark in 1999."
Asked to expound on his comments about only learning about Cup a night earlier, Ferentz explained that he stumbled upon youngest son’s Steven’s "Tweeter [sic] account" and noticed numerous mentions of the Hawks taking or winning the Stanley Cup.
"One of those things, I don’t know what you call them – twits or something – said, ‘Hawk fans celebrate, the Stanley Cup is ours,’" Ferentz related. "There were totally like 30 exclamation points. You could just see the excitement, it is something we have been missing."
Later that same night, Ferentz asked Steven if they had truly done it, had they landed Stanley Cup? "He just looked at me with that ugly red sweater with the Native American head he always wears and smiled," the embattled head coach said. "And I just thought, who is this guy?"
Calls to his assistant coaches were no help.
Ferentz asked all of them, who picked up Stanley Cup? And he received five different answers.
"Patrick Kane, Corey Crawford, Duncan Keith, Marian Hossa, Jonathan Toews – none of those guys work for me," Ferentz said. "It makes me wonder who is doing our recruiting.
"None of them could get me any background," he added. "Where is this guy from? What offers does he have? Is Eastern Michigan after him?"
Finally, Ferentz did the research himself. Even though he admittedly skimmed, the Iowa coach was excited to know Cup came from Canada, which put him under the radar of even the toughest MAC schools. Even more exciting was the tall silver trophy that acted as the first picture on his Wikipedia scouting profile.
"This kid is all about winning and not himself," said Ferentz, who did take umbrage with one thing. "He calls himself Lord, but that’ll probably change when he gets to Iowa City."
Ferentz admitted he hasn’t made contact with Cup yet, but he knows exactly the first thing he will say.
"Stanley Cup, I can’t wait to see you with the Hawkeyes. Also, can you put me in contact with Conn Smythe?"