{"id":15567,"date":"2016-10-19T16:54:58","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T20:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=15567"},"modified":"2016-10-19T16:55:28","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T20:55:28","slug":"15567","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/15567\/","title":{"rendered":"Hometown Hockey lands in Newmarket"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

Connor McDavid may be the brightest hockey star from Newmarket, but Ron Maclean and his crew took the spotlight on Sunday when they made their first stop of the NHL season.
\nRogers Hometown Hockey kicked off their schedule with a trip to Newmarket for a weekend-long festival at the Riverwalk Commons, with hockey fans and players from across the GTA converging on Newmarket for the events and attractions.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s pretty fun,\u201d said eleven-year old Cole, a member of the Newmarket Minor Hockey Association. \u201cThere\u2019s lots of stuff to do.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a really nice way to take the kids out on a Sunday,\u201d said Brian Wilkerson, Cole\u2019s dad. \u201cIn our house it\u2019s hockey seven days a week, so this makes it even easier.\u201d
\nDubbed as the \u201cultimate fan experience tour,\u201d Hometown Hockey brought exhibition road hockey, a \u201chockey circus\u201d show, and shot power and accuracy contests to downtown Newmarket.
\nSigning autographs were Curtis Joseph and Darcy Tucker, two former Maple Leafs who each earned a long line of fans before they even reached the venue.
\nWhile CBC host Tara Sloane was pleasantly greeting fans for a good portion of the weekend, the event culminated with the arrival of Maclean for Sunday evening\u2019s marquee matchup between McDavid\u2019s Edmonton Oilers and the Buffalo Sabres.
\nMarcia Fillipo and her father Mark, both of Aurora, made the trip Sunday and decided to hang around for the game.
\n\u201cHe\u2019s like a celebrity,\u201d said Mark, referring to Maclean. \u201cYou don\u2019t get many chances to see something like this so you have to take advantage of it.\u201d
\nAs if to confirm that Newmarket was the proper choice to kick off this year\u2019s Hometown Hockey schedule, a rowdy cheer from the crowd was heard with every drop of the name \u201cMcDavid.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Connor McDavid may be the brightest hockey star from Newmarket, but Ron Maclean and his crew took the spotlight on Sunday when they made their first stop of the NHL season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/2016-10-20-09.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s3D2k4-15567","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 23:09:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}