First glimpse: The winning Lord Stanley's Gift Public Art sculpture in Ottawa

As the Canadian capital of Ottawa prepares for multiple big anniversaries next year, the city's historic Sparks Street Mall may soon have a shiny new chalice resembling the original hockey Stanley Cup. Designed by Montreal-based architecture team Covit/Nguyen/NORR, the chalice is the winning proposal of the Lord Stanley's Gift Public Art Competition, which sought the best design for a public art monument dedicated to the legacy of Lord Stanley and the cultural significance of hockey in Canada. The winning team was selected out of eight finalists.

A groundbreaking ceremony for the monument is planned for March 18, 2017, marking the 125th anniversary of Lord Stanley's original gift. The monument will then be donated to the City of Ottawa and officially unveiled in December 2017, in time for Canada's 150th anniversary celebration and the centennial anniversary of the National Hockey League.

Read on for more about the winning proposal.

As an ode to the more modest original design of the Stanley Cup, the winning proposal is a 3.45-meter chalice fabricated from silvered aluminum bands. Located near the National War Memorial, the chalice will be built atop a white paved "hockey rink" with embedded stainless steel lines resembling ice-skate marks and 39 granite discs engraved with the names of the Stanley Cup winners from 1893 to 2017. People passing by the sculpture can also sit on the 1.4-meter diameter “hockey puck” bench.

The winning design was selected by the Board of the non-profit Lord Stanley’s Gift Memorial Monument Inc. (LSMMI), who received advice from the competition jury. Chaired by George Hunter, the jury comprised of notable Canadian figures in public art, culture, history, and of course, hockey.

“We believe that this design magnifies and abstracts the Stanley Cup’s original, modest form, giving it a glittering and iconic presence overlooking Confederation Square, the place of the Stanley Cup’s birth”, stated George Hunter. “Our Board found the Covit/Nguyen/ NORR design to be an elegant, contemporary, subtle but extraordinarily powerful tribute to Lord Stanley’s original gift: the modest cup that grew up to be the world’s most sought after hockey trophy, hockey’s holy grail."

More project images in the gallery below.

All images courtesy of Lord Stanley's Gift Public Art Competition.