We talked a little last week about the mystique of the Stanley Cup, which signifies the championship of the National Hockey League...how there are so many traditions surrounding the competition for the cup and the way it is celebrated by the winners.

There is another cup given to signify supremacy in sport and it actually has a longer tradition than the Stanley Cup.

It is what originally was known as the 100 Guinea Cup, an off-the-shelf creation of London jeweler Robert Garrard in 1848. It is now known as the America’s Cup.

The first Marquess of Anglesey bought the cup from the jewelry store and gave it to the Royal Yacht Squadron to be used as a racing trophy. It was the time of the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace, a celebration of Britain’s self-confidence as a worldwide naval power at the height of the Victorian era.

A bunch of rich New Yorkers, members of the New York Yacht Club, decided to have a racing yacht built they could take across the Atlantic and challenge the British. John Stevens was commodore and founder of the NYYC. He formed a syndicate to finance the project.

His counterpart, the Earl of Wilton, was Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron and issued a formal invitation to Stevens to bring his boat over to have a go.

Stevens, being a gambling man, agreed to take the yacht, called America, across the pond, and promised to take “with good grace the sound thrashing we are likely to get.” He was trying to flatter his competition into a false sense of security so they would be more willing to plunk down large bets.

As it happened, that didn’t work. After landing in France, America was cleaned up and sailed across the Channel to England. On the way, she met up with the cutter Laverock, the newest and fastest boat in the fleet.

As the yachting elite of Britain watched, America easily sailed past Laverock, emptying the Americans’ sandbagging operation.

After that, Stevens couldn’t even get any of the British yachts to race America, let alone bet against her.

That is, until a scathing editorial in The London Times attacked the Brits lack of confidence.

Finally, America was accepted as an entry in the race around the Isle of Wight … winner gets the 100 Guinea Cup.

Thirteen other boats, ranging in size from 47 to 392 tons, also took part in the race. Back then, such races started with the boats at anchor and the sails down. America was slow to get started, but, since the rules of the course were not clear, she got away with cutting inside the Nab lightship for a shorter course and crossing the finish line first.

Aurora, the smallest boat in the fleet, crossed eight minutes later but there were no handicap rules back then, so first across the line was the winner.

The America syndicate sold the boat to a British lord and considered melting down the cup to be cast into medals for themselves.

Instead, they donated it to the NYYC, where it was renamed the America’s Cup and put in a place of honor in a special room at the Club’s headquarters in Manhattan.

There it remained, from 1851 to 1980, as the NYYC successfully defended 25 challenges for the trophy.

It is the longest winning streak in sports history. All good things must come to an end, though, and finally, in 1983, so did the NYYC possession of the cup. The Royal Perth Yacht Club, supporting Alan Bond’s Australia II, took the America’s Cup from the U.S. defenders with a come-from-behind 4-3 win in the best of seven series.

The series by the way has now been made a best-of-nine. Hope the NBA doesn’t hear about that.

Three years later, Bond’s boat didn’t even win the right to defend and Dennis Connor, who had lost the Cup in ’83, won it back with Stars & Stripes, representing the San Diego Yacht Club.

The SDYC successfully defended the Cup twice in eight years.

Then along came New Zealand, winning the Cup in 1995 as the smallest nation ever to engage in the America’s Cup competition.

Two years later, a criminal went into the premises of the New Zealand Royal Yacht Club and smashed the cup with a hammer. He was jailed.

Garrard’s offered to restore it at no cost. One observer noted that, if it had been a car, it would have been junked.

In 1999, an Italian syndicate challenged the Kiwis and lost. It was the first time in 149 years that a U.S. boat was not in the America’s Cup finals.

The Cup will be contested again in 2003 in the waters off Auckland, NZ. The Louis Vuitton Cup series, used to choose the challenger, will get underway October First this year.

Anchors aweigh!