Avco Cup
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The Avco Cup was the championship trophy of the original World Hockey Association (1972-1979). The trophy's naming rights were sold to the former Avco Corporation (a name originally derived from "Aviation Company"), a defense contractor which also had many other interests, including at the time consumer finance, apparently the product that it was desiring to advertise. It was never to develop anything approaching the prestige of the NHL's Stanley Cup, and in fact may have been most famous, or perhaps infamous, in its absence. When the New England Whalers won the league's initial championship in 1973 the trophy had not been completed, and the Whalers were forced to "skate" their divisional championship trophy around the ice surface, much to the embarrassment of the WHA office.