B.C. Lions' great accidentally donates pair of Grey Cup rings
Credit to Author: Scott Brown| Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2019 22:42:58 +0000
Cory Mantyka was one of the best offensive linemen to ever play for the B.C. Lions and he has a place on the team’s Wall of Fame and two Grey Cup rings to prove it.
Well, he did have a pair of rings … until recently.
The two gold rings, which he received for being part of the Lions’ Cup-winning teams in 1994 and 2000, are no longer in his possession after they were mistakenly included with boxes of donated goods picked up by a local charity organization.
Cory Mantyka is a member of the B.C. Lions’ Wall of Fame.
“I always said being a champion is something they can never take from you. When you retire they can say you were lazy, you were fat, you were no good, but when you are a champion … you don’t care about anything else. It’s the one thing you strive for when you are a player,” said Mantyka. “At the end of the day, (a ring) is just a piece of jewelry. But it has a lot of sentimental value to me.”
The oversized rings were usually tucked out of sight in a safety deposit box but Mantyka brought them out for an August event at B.C. Place Stadium.
No one is pointing fingers at the Mantyka household in Surrey, but somehow after the B.C. Place event, the rings didn’t get locked away and instead ended up in a collection of items that were handed over to the Canadian Diabetes Association last month and likely delivered to a Value Village thrift shop in Langley.
“We had a routine of where we kept the rings and we got a little casual with it … a bunch of things were grabbed and they were grabbed with it,” said Kristie Mantyka, Cory’s wife, who handles the family’s charity-donating duties.
The Mantykas paid a visit to the Value Village but no one there has spotted the lost rings.
Kristie is hopeful someone, either a thrift-shop worker or a customer, will find them and return them.
“It’s a very awkward thing to share when you make a mistake like this, but we need a little help and maybe someone will come across them … and does the right thing,” she said. “I hope it’s a good story that we can laugh about one day.”