Andrew Metelitz went to Las Vegas expecting to watch the Stanley Cup Final and take in the scene. Instead, the lifelong New York Islanders fan from Long Island wound up inside the celebration, drinking from the Stanley Cup while wearing an Islanders hat.
Metelitz and his friend, Riedel, have made the Stanley Cup Final an annual trip, with one goal in mind: getting as close to the Cup as they can. Last season, they got to the area outside the Florida Panthers’ locker room after the team won the title. This year, they pushed it even further.
Metelitz spotted that family members of Hurricanes players were wearing yellow wristbands to get onto the ice after the game. That gave him an idea. He folded a yellow streamer from the pregame festivities into a bracelet, slipped it under his watch, and walked past security.
For about 20 minutes, he was part of the Carolina Hurricanes’ on-ice celebration. He spoke with players, coaches and family members, and took photos that made it look like he belonged there all along.
The night didn’t end there. Metelitz and Riedel later ran into the Hurricanes again as the team carried the Stanley Cup down the Las Vegas Strip. Rather than stay in the crowd, they joined the procession and walked alongside the champions before heading into Caesars Palace for the team’s after party.
That’s where Metelitz got the moment every hockey fan dreams about: someone handed him the Stanley Cup.
“I feel like I genuinely have won the Stanley Cup, like I am drinking out of the best cup, the Stanley Cup. It’s going all over my shirt.
It’s going down my beard. I genuinely felt as if they took me in as their own,” Metelitz told.
“They shared the best moment of their life with me.”
For Islanders fans, the wait for another Stanley Cup celebration has now stretched past 40 years.