TORONTO (AP) — Miragh Bitove vividly remembers her first time seeing the Stanley Cup.
She was a teenager. A cousin was visiting from out of town. Her dad suggested they head to the Hockey Hall of Fame in downtown Toronto and take a look. When the pair hit the top step of the staircase leading to the sport’s silver chalice, Bitove was in awe.
“Nothing like it,” she recalled. “There’s a glow.”
An art history and museum management major, Bitove went on to work as a Hall of Fame intern in 2003 before parlaying that into a job as an archivist at the venue.
Years later, she is the first woman in the role of Cup overseer on its annual celebration tour.
Bitove, her white gloves on whenever she might touch the trophy, hit the road with colleagues last summer, crisscrossing North America as the Vegas Golden Knights basked in the glory of their victory.
“We see a bit of everything,” Bitove told the Canadian Press. “From wedding-sized parties right down to potlucks in grandma’s garage. It’s great watching people’s natural reactions. Incredibly special.”
What’s also special is Bitove blazing a trail handling the Cup in a sport that has been dominated by men for the better part of a century. The mother of three — two boys and a girl — said she doesn’t want special treatment.
“A bit surreal,” Bitove said of being the first woman in the job. “That part doesn’t really enter into my train of thought. When you go out on these trips, you get some sad faces in the house. I’ve always said, ‘I want to go out there and travel so that other girls can see me working in hockey.’”
Bitove has also turned some heads on those long days.
“If I’m in my (Hall of Fame) blazer it’s, ‘Oh, I didn’t know they made that blazer for women,’” said the Toronto native. “And that’s great ... I’m glad to be out there and have people see it.”
Phil Pritchard — the Hall of Fame’s vice president and the “Keeper of the Cup” — remembers when Bitove first arrived in the building.
“She had all the interest, all the background, everything that we’re looking for,” he said. “When you get someone like that, you don’t want to lose them.”
Bitove also has the game in her blood. While never a hockey player herself, the family tree includes great uncle Ted Kennedy, who won the Cup five times with the Toronto Maple Leafs between 1945 and 1951.
“Hockey was sort of in my periphery,” she said. “In my grandmother’s house was a giant portrait of my uncle Ted in game action — black and white, beautiful photo. I walked (into the Hall of Fame) actually looking for information on my uncle Ted. It organically sprouted from there.”
Bitove and her colleagues are tasked with taking care of the Cup every moment it’s on the road. The team atmosphere and camaraderie is crucial, especially on those long stretches away from home.
“She fits the perfect mold for the Hockey Hall of Fame," Pritchard said. "If that falls under the arc of being the first woman on the road with the Cup, so be it.”
When she isn’t getting hundreds of pictures taken alongside the Cup in small towns and big cities, Bitove works with other artifacts to tell the game’s story.
“Every new item that comes into the museum comes through my desk, so I’m writing the history of hockey,” she explained. “Fifty years from now people can go back and see what the Hockey Hall of Fame had to say.”
Bitove has spoken to her 7-year-old daughter — the only girl on the little one’s co-ed hockey team — about what mom is up to.
“I always tell her, ‘You’ve got to double down, work hard and prove that you belong,’” said Bitove, who’s equally proud to have her boys, ages nine and 11, witness a woman in this role. “When I go on the road ... I’m doing it so other people can see me working in hockey.”
The Hockey Hall of Fame used to parade the Cup a short distance back to the museum from Toronto’s Union Station at the conclusion of every summer tour. Back in 2003, that event happened to fall on Bitove’s first day as an intern.
“Phil Pritchard goes, ‘Oh, just hold on. I’ll be right back. I have to do this parade,’” she said. “I looked out the window of our offices and I saw him parading down with the Stanley Cup. I thought, ‘Where am I? This is crazy.’”
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Cup Keeper Miragh Bitove is photographed at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto on Thursday, April 11, 2024. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP)
Cup Keeper Miragh Bitove is photographed with the Stanley Cup at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto on Thursday, April 11, 2024. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP)
Stocks closed sharply higher on Wall Street, erasing their losses for the week, after the government reported a cooldown in hiring last month. For markets that was a welcome sign that the Federal Reserve’s efforts to fight inflation by slowing the economy with high interest rates might be making some progress. The S&P 500 rose 1.3% Friday, its biggest gain since February. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.2%. and the Nasdaq composite climbed 2%. U.S. employers added 175,000 jobs last month, down sharply from a big increase in March. Apple jumped after announcing a mammoth $110 billion stock buyback.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
Stocks are rising on Wall Street Friday following a government report showing job growth rose modestly in April, a sign that persistently high interest rates may be starting to take a bigger toll on the world’s largest economy.
The S&P 500 was 1.3% higher in afternoon trading and on track to erase its losses for the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 468 points, or 1.2%, as of 2:55 p.m. Eastern. The Nasdaq composite added 2.1%.
The nation’s employers added 175,000 jobs last month, down sharply from the blockbuster increase of 315,000 in March. It was also well below the 233,000 gain that economists had predicted. April’s average hourly earnings also rose less than expected. The report suggests that the Federal Reserve’s aggressive streak of rate hikes may finally be cooling the pace of hiring.
“The demand for labor is slowing, which will eventually ease inflation pressures, giving the Fed some leeway to cut rates later this year,” said Jeffrey Roach, chief economist for LPL Financial. “Slower payroll growth and fewer hours worked imply the economy is slowing at a measured pace. This jobs report is consistent with the soft landing narrative.”
Treasury yields in the bond market mostly fell following the jobs report. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which lenders use as a guide for pricing home loans, eased to 4.5% from 4.59% late Thursday. The two-year yield, which moves more closely with expectations for the Fed, fell to 4.81% from 4.88%.
The U.S. economy is in a tight spot, where the hope is that it remains strong enough to stay out of a recession but not so strong that it worsens the already stalled progress on inflation. That is essentially the “soft landing” the Fed is hoping to achieve as it tries to cool the rate of inflation to its target of 2%. Inflation at the consumer level stood at 3.5% in March, far below the peak of 9.1% nearly two years ago.
Stubbornly high readings on inflation this year pushed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to say on Wednesday that it will likely take “longer than previously expected” to get enough confidence about inflation to cut interest rates.
“Some of this data coming out of the employment report dampens that narrative a little bit,” said Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist for Allianz Investment Management. "They want to cut interest rates, but they need more confidence in the inflation data and today's wage data is a little bit more confidence for them.”
The Fed’s main interest rate has been sitting at its highest level since 2001, and cuts would release some pressure on the economy and financial markets.
The benchmark S&P 500 fell 4.2% in April, its first monthly loss since October, as signals of stubbornly high inflation forced traders to ratchet back expectations for when the Fed could begin easing interest rates.
After coming into the year forecasting six or more cuts to rates in 2024, traders are now largely betting on just one or two, if any, according to data from CME Group.
Technology stocks accounted for much of the rally Friday. Apple jumped 7.2% after announcing a mammoth $110 billion stock buyback. The tech giant reported late Thursday its steepest quarterly decline in iPhone sales since the outset of the pandemic.
Microsoft rose 2.1% and Nvidia added 3.6%.
Several companies notched gains after reporting strong quarterly results.
Amgen climbed 12.4% after the biotechnology company gave investors an encouraging update on a potential obesity drug. Live Nation Entertainment added 7.6% after the ticket seller and concert promoter beat analysts’ first-quarter revenue forecasts.
Motorola Solutions was 5% higher after the communications equipment maker raised its profit forecast for the year.
Booking Holdings rose 3.7% after reporting better-than-expected first-quarter bookings and revenue. Another online travel company, Expedia Group, didn't fare as well. Its shares slumped 14.6% after the company's latest quarterly results beat Wall Street targets but lowered its full-year bookings guidance because its Vrbo rental unit has been slow to recover from its migration to Expedia’s platform.
In Europe, Germany’s DAX gained 0.6%, while the CAC 40 in Paris rose 0.5% and London’s FTSE 100 added 0.5%.
Markets in Tokyo and mainland China were closed for holidays. The Japanese yen strengthened slightly against the dollar.
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Currency traders pass by the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 3, 2024. Asian shares were mostly higher Friday ahead of a report on the U.S. jobs market, with several major markets including Tokyo and Shanghai closed for holidays. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders work near the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 3, 2024. Asian shares were mostly higher Friday ahead of a report on the U.S. jobs market, with several major markets including Tokyo and Shanghai closed for holidays. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A currency trader smiles near the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, May 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
