Gordie Howe’s name will be stripped from Stanley Cup: Here’s why

BOSTON — So long, Gordon Howe. Bye-bye, Robert Hull. Au revoir, M. Richard. Those Hockey Hall of Famers and the rest of the players who won an NHL championship from 1954-65 are being stripped off the Stanley Cup this spring to create room for a new layer of names without making the trophy too big to be skated around the ice by the winning captain or checked on an airplane for its next journey. “People in Saskatchewan are a little upset Gordie’s name is coming off, but that’s the tradition,” said Mike Bolt, one of the Hall of Fame staffers assigned to escort the Cup around the world. “It can’t get any bigger. … We wouldn’t be able to do what we do.” Perhaps the most iconic trophy in sports,