This is the life Mike Bolt leads. The one that’s taken him around the world as the gatekeeper of the most prized silverware in sports. The one that has him as the Stanley Cup’s own Secret Service. He’s not quite needed to take a bullet but perhaps a dive into the pool. A Toronto Maple Leafs fan reborn as a besuited transient with 30 favorite teams.

He’s the man with 1,000 stories. All hysterical or poignant. All ones he’s told 1,000 times before.

And wait — don’t go — he’s got one more.

There is the time he was in Kandahar, Afghanistan on a trip to bring the Cup to the troops and he went inside to the barracks while everybody left. Then sirens started to wail and jets rumbled overhead. What did Mike do? He took a seat on the black case that carries the Cup, with three barely still-on-there “Fragile” stickers peeling off the three-foot long box, holding the silver beacon inside of its purple velvet walls, and he just read a magazine. Then he took a shower.

And when everyone returned, military officers and former hockey players, they asked where he’d been.

Right here, on top of this Cup, of course.

“Holy crap, you’re dedicated to your job,” they said to him.

That’s how the world spins for Mike. He used to own a store in Toronto, selling cowboy boots and western apparel of all things. He closed it down in the mid '90s and wondered what he would do next. A friend suggested a job opening in the Hockey Hall of Fame. So, in 1995, he took it. Five years later, he’s one of four chaperones for the Stanley Cup, accompanying it for 250 of its 320 days on the road.

The Cup has been in Siberia, Russia’s Arctic Circle, Finland, Slovakia, Belarus, Germany, England, and 49 states except for Hawaii. He’s been just about everywhere too.

His first summer on this job, the Devils won their second championship. It was the summer of 2000 and his first deploy was to a northern Michigan peninsula with Randy McKay. He held a keg party for the crew that built his house. So Mike was there.

He was there with Patrik Elias and Petr Sykora in the Czech Republic, for two straight days, VIP treatment right off the plane. An entire country celebrating its native sons and the glorious prize they brought home.

Then he was in Montreal, the city genuflecting over Martin Brodeur. And three years later, he was in Quebec, in Brodeur’s cottage when the Devils’ goaltender decided this time he’d let the people come to him.

Hockey stars, Presidents, celebrities, rockers — he’s met them all. But that’s not why he loves his job.

“I get to ride its coat tails,” Mike said. “It’s all about the Cup. It’s so cool.”

He’s seen Ray Bourque go to sleep with the Cup and wake up with it too, because how else would you spend a night with something you’ve been chasing for 22 years?

He’s been there with Lightning GM Jay Feaster in 2004 when they went onto a space shuttle six months before launch.

And when the Niedermayer brothers took it to the top of Bull Mountain in British Columbia in 2007, it was Mike who handed Rob the Cup on the ground as the helicopter hovered feet above because there was nowhere to land.

The 2008 Malibu house party at Chris Chelios’ house? With Kid Rock and Sylvester Stallone and Ray Liotta and Cuba Gooding Jr. — and Tom Hanks crashing just to sneak a look at the Cup. He was there, awestruck.

“I could sit there and name drop all day. It was July 4th weekend and it was awesome.”

Where hasn’t Mike been?

Where hasn’t the Cup been? It’s had its adventures.

On ski lifts and the flight deck of the Atlantis space shuttle. It’s gone fishing and golfing. On the back of sea-doo with Sydney Crosby, him in black life jacket and the Cup safely fitted in yellow on the fresh waters of Nova Scotia. He’s been on the back of Harley with its own specially engineered seatbelt and in the balcony for a Pearl Jam concert.

But the Cup does have its limits. Mike had to turn down parachuting and when it went into Mario Lemieux’s pool, Mike had to fish it out and then gave him an earful. Chlorine makes it blotchy. Seawater too. Mike learned that the hard way the summer after Carolina won when it turned black for a moment.

That’s why he’s nearby to always clean it up.

Ice cream sundaes (Doug Weight makes a great one), poutine, lobster bisque, spaghetti and meatballs, thai food, soy sauce, popcorn, beer, champagne, milk, apple juice, wine spritzers, margaritas. The Cup always needs a rinse.

Picture him with a garden hose in Brodeur’s driveway, soap and a rag nearby. Or it in the shower after a long day – the Cup’s got a midnight curfew now.

“I always joke I’m a professional dishwasher,” he said. “If you’re going to be a dishwasher, might as well clean the best cup in the world.”

Memories, yeah, he’s had a few.

“They’re all fun in a way because it’s a special moment for them,” Mike said. “It’s neat to be a fly on the wall and get to see and hear everything.”

But favorites — he doesn’t play that game. No trip is better than another and he doesn’t root for teams anymore. The Cup has taken him to places he could never imagine and he’s just waiting for the next trip.

Mike Vorkunov: mvorkunov@starledger.com; twitter.com/Mike_Vorkunov