 News & Trends: Make no mistake about it. When it comes to rings being worn by sports teams celebrating their season as champions, size matters. And each season the finger-bling gets bigger and more opulent than the preceding champ's ring. It must be that alpha-competitive drive in those guys that prompts their need to wear rings that resemble bracelets. The latest display of turbo-charged ostentatiousness comes from the NHL's winners of the 2009 Stanley Cup, the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Stanley Cup-winning Penguins' 14-karat white and gold ring has 100 grams of gold and houses 167 diamonds, which is approximately 4.50 carats' worth. The team's logo, a penguin playing hockey over a triangular backdrop, is a custom-cut black onyx crown with a 1.3-carat pear-shaped diamond that sets on the image of the Stanley Cup, with a cluster of round diamonds, replicating a hockey arena and its icy surface.
The ring's left side has the name and number of individual players along with the team's four playoff series wins. The right side has the year, 2009, split with three diamond-adorned Stanley Cups to commemorate all three Stanley Cups won by the Penguins. The team also won it all in 1991 and 1992; "91" and "92" are inscribed above the "cups" on the right and the left.
Intergold designed the Penguins' ring in accordance to the design specifications set forth by team owners Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle, general manager Ray Shero, and head coach Dan Bylsma.
According to Miran Armutlu, the president and CEO of Intergold, it was one of the most complex rings ever produced by the firm, as it took 23 separate dies to deliver the ring as specified by the top brass of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Will Mr. Armultu be ready to do it again? The Penguins have appeared in the Stanley Cup Finals two consecutive years now. The Pens' superstar quartet of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal, and Marc-Andre Fleury are still working on going from sparse stubble to full beards. It is a long-standing tradition that hockey players not shave throughout the playoffs until eliminated from contention to win the coveted Cup.
For more info, visit the Pittsburgh Penguins Web site at Penguins.NHL.com.
For JustLuxe James Rothaar
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