Stanley Cup's appearance in Twin Cities postponed due to global tech outage
MINNETONKA, Minn. — The National Hockey League's top trophy will not be in the Twin Cities on Friday due to flight issues caused by the global IT outage.
The Stanley Cup was scheduled to be at the Pagel Activity Center in Minnetonka in the late morning as part of a public appearance by Kyle Okposo, a St. Paul native who most recently played for the Florida Panthers. He is not currently under contract for next year.
The appearance was postponed due to flight delays, the arena announced.
"Stay tuned for possible reschedules," the arena said in a statement.
According to Michael Russo of The Athletic, the trophy is stuck in St. Louis due to the outages and Okposo is "crushed" by the news.
The Panthers won the Stanley Cup in a 2-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers in the 2024 NHL Stanley Cup Final, held in Sunrise, Florida.
It took 30 seasons, 457 different players, 18 different coaches, about two decades of irrelevance wedged in there along the way, rumors of contraction, rumors of relocation, and who knows how many bad nights to get to the moment of winning the championship.
The global Microsoft outage is causing mass flight cancellations and delays nationwide Friday morning, including at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The outage is being caused by a CrowdStrike software glitch. As of about 8:30 a.m., some airlines were beginning to resume operations after the morning ground stops.
Some other services in Minnesota, including healthcare, are also being affected.
