Twenty minutes old might be a little young to be breaking records, but newborn Ann Marie Vancil managed exactly when she became the youngest person ever to be in the iconic Stanley Cup.
For parents Elizabeth and Clark Vancil, hockey super-fans, everything came together perfectly.
Their favorite team, the St. Louis Blues, had just pulled off an unlikely win in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals the night before, tying the series. The soon-to-be parents had hosted a watch party in their room at Mercy St. Louis hospital while waiting on Ann Marie to be born, and were thrilled to see their team win, 4-2.
"We had a watch party while I was in labor," Elizabeth told TODAY Parents. "That's what most people do, right?"
Little did the expectant mom know that with Stanley Cup fever sweeping her city, the NHL brought the famous trophy to Mercy St. Louis hospital in the hopes of breaking the record for "youngest baby in the Stanley Cup."
"We did not know, or even think, it was a possibility until the night before," said Elizabeth. "We got word that the Cup might be there in the morning, and that a baby might get to take a picture with it, and that's all we knew."
A family member at the hospital tracked down the trophy; medical staff checked in with Clark and Elizabeth to see if they wanted to break the record.
"Beth gave birth, and they took baby Ann over to the examination table, and another nurse I hadn't seen before came and asked me if we wanted Ann to be the Stanley Cup baby," said Clark. "We had heard a little bit about it, and I knew Beth would be OK with it, so I went and told her, and before we knew it we had the Stanley Cup coming into the room."
There was just one danger to skate around — there's a lot of superstition around touching the Cup, and the Vancils wanted to make sure they didn't do anything to jeopardize their team's potential win. They were careful to wrap Ann Marie in blankets, and nobody but the Cup's official handler laid a finger on the trophy.
"She didn't touch the Cup. I want to make sure everybody knows that," Elizabeth said.
The hospital even took to Twitter early this afternoon to confirm that they hadn't done anything to risk the Blues' chances at victory.
"No one touched the #StanleyCup there was a blanket barrier!" they announced.
The Vancils are still rooting for their team until the series ends, but they're also thrilled to have secured their own place in the Stanley Cup's history. The last record-holder, the newborn baby of a member of the Blackhawks' executive team, was in the Cup more than an hour and a half after their birth.
"We kind of killed the record," Elizabeth said.
"We think at 20 minutes old, unless they have a doctor that basically takes the baby out and puts it right in the Cup, we've got a good chance at keeping the record," Clark agreed.
To make it all better, the entire event was captured on video by NBC Sports: Check it out!