via Smoke’s Poutinerie

The Stanley Cup Playoffs kicked off Wednesday night, and hockey fans are already living up to their obsessive reputations.

To celebrate the start of the chase for Lord Stanley’s Cup, Josh Elkin, a TV host for the Cooking Channel, got together with restauranteurs from Smoke’s Poutinerie to pay special tribute to the trophy — albeit in a rather strange way.

This culinary mashup produced one of the weirder sports-inspired edible creations in recent memory: a Poutine replica of the Stanley Cup. Now, if you are not family with Poutine, it is a dish that, fittingly, originated in Canada. It is typically made with a base of french fries topped with cheese curds and then smothered in a brown gravy.

Elkin took a little liberty with the french fry component and just shaped the potatoes in a manner to reflect the trophy, but the integrity of the dish remains intact.

Depending on your feelings about Poutine, this is either a mouth-watering temptation or an appetite-killing nightmare. But this dish is certainly not for the faint of heart, nor the high in cholesterol. Perhaps it’s a good thing that the Poutine Stanley Cup is not available for sale. If you want one, you’ll have to make it yourself. Just take into consideration that it took Elkin four hours to make his.

This is not the first time Canadians have channeled their NHL playoff fervor into their food creations. Last year, Montreal’s Bar Brutus debuted a Stanley Cup made out of bacon. It seems the only thing our neighbors up north might love more than hockey is ingesting the most unhealthy food possible in appreciation of it.

Fans of the other major professional sports should accept this as a challenge. Can we not make a Lombardi Trophy out of chili cheese fries? (Or, like, a giant potato covered in chili and cheese?) A grilled cheese Larry O’Brien Trophy? The World Series trophy (which no one calls the Commissioner’s Trophy) would be difficult in terms of structural integrity. Maybe a giant club sandwich with really long toothpicks making the flags? The World Cup trophy could be a large stromboli.

For now, however, a tip of the cap to Canada and hockey fans for this one.

[Puck Daddy]

About Ben Sieck

Ben is a recent graduate of Butler University where he served as Managing Editor and Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Butler Collegian. He currently resides in Indianapolis.