Images from the denouement

Here is the official photographic evidence.  (Yes, we're aware of Photoshop.  Take off your foil hat for a minute, okay?)  First is the full team shot.  Birkle clearly was distracted by a shapely female form in the audience.  And then there is Rich showing us the physical price one must pay to be a champion.  Second, is the triumphant raising of the cup by Pete.  After are some fun shots of the boys doing their best cup winning poses.  (Apologies for the quality of the later images.  The photographer was quite a distance away.)

No tongue, please

The thrill of vicory...

"Hey, don't drop that thing, butterfingers!"

Dane enjoying his first tournament experience.

To pull back the curtain a bit on the trophy presentation:

• The trophy is a scale replica of the Stanley Cup...without ANYTHING engraved on it at all.  It's really just a plastic prop like the kind some superfan brings with him to an NHL playoff game, except this one had some ballast weight in the bottom.  See the second to last photo?  Yours truly was monkeying around with "the cup" and the weights broke free and slammed into the inside of the bowl.
• The fact that this was a replica of the real Stanley Cup kind of harshed the buzz of winning.  As beer leaguers, we are painfully aware that we are engaged in a simulacrum of professional hockey.  Being handed a fake Stanley Cup after reaching the apex of said simulacrum is a stark reminder that we are all just a little bit pathetic in continuing to compete past our primes.  If youth sports is about character building and interpersonal skill building, then adult sports are about escapism.  Once or twice a week we pull on our matching sweaters, take to the ice, and forget that we have a day job.  Okay, maybe we don't forget entirely, but we get a chance to be reminded of the dreams of playing professional hockey that we all once had as little boys.
• The height of the irony, though, was how Mr. Tournament Employee wouldn't let "the cup" get more than two feet away from him.  No, we didn't even get to suck a beer out of the damn thing, because he snatched it away before we could abscond with it to the locker room.  The tournament director completely missed the point by not letting us keep a trophy for the year.  Instead they handed us each a plaque like we are a bunch of seven-year-olds that need our self-esteem stoked.  Look, we're not going to cry if we don't get individual awards.  No doubt most of these end up in a drawer in the garage, or perpetually rattle around in the bottom of a hockey bag.  What's the harm in letting us watch over "the cup" for the intervening year (or perhaps just a few weeks), take lots of fun pics and videos with it and post them to Facebook, YouTube, etc?

Okay, no more kvetching.  Couldn't be prouder to have been part of the team.