- Hurricanes assistant GM Tyler Dellow spent his day with the Stanley Cup in his adopted hometown of Cranford, New Jersey
- The Cup doubled as an ice cream bowl at a local creamery before stops at the police station, firehouse and a family friend’s bookstore
- Read below for how an analytics blogger turned Cup-winning executive shared the trophy with his town
The Stanley Cup has been kissed by legends and paraded through big cities. On Sunday it became an ice cream bowl in a small New Jersey town.
Tyler Dellow, the Carolina Hurricanes assistant general manager, took hockey’s biggest prize home to Cranford, New Jersey for his day with the Cup. The main event was Vanilla Bean Creamery, where four oversized scoops got dropped into the bowl before a pack of kids dove in.
Dellow walked NHL.com through the scene.
“I’ve got a great picture of my kids and some other kids eating out of it. It’s like watching wolves eat a buffalo. They’re just right in there.”
The whole day was about sharing it. Dellow ran the trophy through the Cranford police station, the firehouse, The Cranford Bookstore and the Cranford Tennis and Swim Club, then capped it with a six-hour block party.
He explained why the town earned the spotlight.
“Cranford’s been great for us. My son and daughter were both born here. It’s really the only place my daughter has lived. Cranford’s a really special place.”
The bookstore stop hit hardest because local hockey kids got to stand right next to the Cup. At the swim club, Dellow noticed three 10-year-old girls who play hockey hanging back, so he waved them over for a look.
Carolina has been passing the trophy around all summer, and the group keeps landing on the same feeling. Captain Jordan Staal put it in one line on the team’s account:
Watching the guys he loves raise it, Staal said, was the ultimate goal. Dellow’s own path to that moment was anything but standard.
He built mc79hockey.com into a go-to analytics blog, earned a law degree and practiced civil litigation before hockey came calling. From there it was the Oilers, a stint writing for The Athletic, five seasons with the Devils, and now the Hurricanes, where he runs the data, salary cap and contract group.
“We just did something we were interested in and opportunities kept coming. And then one day you look around and you got the flipping Stanley Cup with you.”
Carolina general manager Eric Tulsky came to the celebration and pointed to Dellow as a load-bearing piece of the front office.
“He plays a big role in our front office, leading the data team and the salary cap and contract group, and he’s really helped us sort of put the team together and keep everything on the rails.”
It all traces back to June, when the Hurricanes finally got the Cup back to Raleigh:
Now the whole organization is taking turns with it, from the room to the front office. For a guy who started out blogging about zone entries, a strawberry-and-grasshopper sundae out of the Stanley Cup is a pretty good place to land.
