Captain (ice hockey)

[3] Officially captains have no other responsibility or authority, although they may, depending on the league or individual team, have various informal duties, such as participation in pre-game ceremonies or other events outside the game.

When Boston Bruins captain Terry O'Reilly retired, Ray Bourque and Rick Middleton were named as co-captains of the team for the 1985–86 season.

Some selections or removals of NHL captaincies have been controversial, more so than the other North American professional sports leagues.

[9] Tampa Bay Lightning head coach John Tortorella stripped the captaincy from Vincent Lecavalier after disagreements about the player's skills and conditioning practices.

[10] In 1980, Darryl Sittler angrily resigned the captaincy by cutting off the "C" from his Toronto Maple Leafs jersey with scissors, in protest of Harold Ballard's trade of his best friend Lanny McDonald,[11] Ballard likened Sittler's actions to flag burning.

However, as Bucyk was the most senior of the alternate captains, he was first one to be presented the Stanley Cup when the team won the championship in 1970 and 1972.

The Boston Bruins' Ray Bourque was previously the longest-tenured captain in NHL history from 1985–86 to 1999–00, being co-captain for the first three seasons.

[19] Alfredsson's record was tied by Zdeno Chara, who served as the captain of the Boston Bruins also for 14 seasons between 2006–07 and 2019–20.

[35] Jean Beliveau is the only one to have captained his team to win five Stanley Cup championships, doing so with the Montreal Canadiens between 1961 and 1971.

Dunc Munro was the first NHL captain born in Europe to lead his team to a Stanley Cup title (1926), and Charlie Gardiner was the first to accomplish the same feat in the post-WHL era (1934).

Daniel Alfredsson was the first European-born and trained captain to lead an NHL team to the Stanley Cup Finals (2007), while Nicklas Lidstrom was the first captain born and trained in Europe to lead an NHL team to a Stanley Cup title (2008).

Mark Messier was the first NHL player to win the Stanley Cup as captain of two different teams: the Edmonton Oilers in 1990 and the New York Rangers in 1994.

Sidney Crosby became the youngest captain in the NHL to win the Stanley Cup in 2009 at 21 years 10 months.

The youngest captain to lead his team to the Stanley Cup in the history of the trophy is Mike Grant of the 1895 Montreal Victorias, who was 21 years and 2 months at the time.

This was in response to complaints from opponents of the Montreal Canadiens, who complained that Durnan left his crease to argue with the referee at strategic points during games, resulting in unscheduled timeouts.