TORONTO — Simply name it a wedding made in hockey heaven.
Designing the primary championship ring for the Skilled Ladies’s Hockey League was an surprising ask. However it “simply made sense” for Chau Lui, the co-owner of Paris Jewellers Canada, a luxurious model constructed on marking celebratory milestones by way of jewellery.
“My daughters play hockey and find it irresistible,” stated Lui, who recollects going to video games along with her household and watching her women, ages 10 and 13, comply with their passions by way of this sport.
Lui and her daughters are additionally followers of The Skilled Ladies’s Hockey League, which was based in 2023 and contains six groups — three every from the U.S. and Canada — that play in North America.
But such enthusiasm nonetheless wasn’t sufficient to seal this deal between the PWHL and the Edmonton-based retailer, which was based in 1987 by Lui’s Vietnamese-immigrant dad and mom as a small jewellery restore retailer. Concerned in its operation from a younger age, that have and her mom’s go-for-it perspective left indelible marks upon Lui and her sister Trang Wong, the monetary officer of their firm.
The sisters now oversee a workforce that’s 90 p.c feminine, in addition to 22 shops throughout Canada, with their twenty third location set to open in Calgary’s Southcentre Mall in June.
“The PWHL selected Paris Jewellers to companion on the primary Walter Cup Champions ring due to its ardour to empower and elevate ladies,” Ali Bologna, senior director, model and advertising and marketing, for the PWHL, stated of the multiyear settlement.
Minnesota Frost Paris Jewellers Championship Ring
Courtesy of Paris Jewellers Canada
For the primary effort, the 2 events centered on honoring PWHL Minnesota, the crew that received the Walter Cup within the league’s inaugural season. Bologna was concerned within the design course of, as had been just a few league members and key people from the Minnesota crew’s enterprise and hockey operations employees.
“It took many rounds of revisions to get this proper,” Bologna informed WWD.
That included months of debate in regards to the ring’s form, the engraving on it, plus the selection of stones within the ultimate design.
The discussions led to what Lui calls “the biggest becoming ring that Paris Jewellers Canada has ever designed.”
Twenty-six participant rings had been created, along with rings that went to coaches and employees. Every inaugural ring options the participant’s identify and crew quantity, plus the Minnesota crew’s colours and fonts from that first season. The design contains purple amethyst in addition to 74 diamonds across the ring’s sides — a sum representing the variety of objectives Minnesota scored in the course of the first season.
The stones encompass the names of Minnesota and the Walter Cup.
Minnesota Frost Paris Jewellers Championship Ring
Courtesy of Paris Jewellers Canada
Seen, too, is the date — Might 29, 2024 — when the ultimate was performed, and 3-0 — a nod to the rating of that sport. Additionally seen are the phrases “Win one sport,” which turned the crew’s playoff motto final season.
“We actually wished to inform a narrative,” Lui stated.
“This was our first time designing a championship ring and it was a particular second. It was tinged with this concept that in the event you can see it you could be it,” stated Lui. “That inspiration was the drive that drove every little thing.”
