{"id":24010,"date":"2019-06-20T17:55:12","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T21:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24010"},"modified":"2019-06-26T14:04:45","modified_gmt":"2019-06-26T18:04:45","slug":"auroras-robert-thomas-celebrates-stanley-cup-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/auroras-robert-thomas-celebrates-stanley-cup-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora\u2019s Robert Thomas celebrates Stanley Cup win"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

He may not have been on the ice when the\nfinal buzzer sounded in the St. Louis Blues\u2019 Game Seven win in the NHL\u2019s\nStanley Cup Finals, but that could not stop the shine in Robert Thomas\u2019 eyes\nlast Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Aurora native, plagued with an\ninjury sustained by a Torey Krug hit in Game One of the series with the Boston\nBruins, took to the ice in his jersey post-game to celebrate with his\nteammates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust incredible,\u201d Thomas told a throng\nof reporters during the celebration. \u201cIt\u2019s the greatest accomplishment of my\nlife, so far.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That list of accomplishments is growing\nat a ridiculously rapid rate, and he\u2019s only a teenager: Thomas has so far seen\na pair of OHL championships, a Memorial Cup, an IIHF World Junior championship,\nand now a Stanley Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019m on top of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 19-year old St. Louis Blues prospect\nwas honoured in October of 2018 at the Mayor\u2019s Breakfast of Champions as the\n2018 Athlete of the Year, sponsored by Sport Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A staple in the York-Simcoe Express AAA\nminor system from a young age, the Canadian hockey world first caught a glimpse\nof Thomas on the gold medal winning Team Canada at the 2018 IIHF Under-20 World\nChampionship in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2017 first-round draft pick of the\nSt. Louis Blues capped off an incredible Ontario Hockey League season as the\nleading scorer of the Hamilton Bulldogs, leading to hearing his name called as\nthe league\u2019s Most Valuable Player following the Bulldogs championship title in\nMay of last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thomas was leading the OHL\u2019s London\nKnights in scoring when he was traded to the Bulldogs in a blockbuster in\nJanuary, setting up Hamilton for their successful run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the Bulldogs were forced to give\nup a promising prospect, four second-round draft picks, and a third round pick\nto acquire the prized centre-man, the Aurora native led his team the remainder\nof the season in putting up four goals and 25 assists in 22 games with his new\nclub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He spent the better part of three OHL seasons\nwith the Knights, catching the eye of scouts after a successful stint in the\nYork-Simcoe Express minor system and with the St. Andrew\u2019s Saints varsity\nsquad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thomas joins another former Saint as two\nof the newest members to win the prized Cup, that of Michael Del Zotto, class\nof 2008. On the opposite end of their careers, Del Zotto joined Thomas in the\npress box for the final game after a decade in the big show, yet told reporters\nit was \u201cunbelievable\u201d to win his first Stanley Cup ring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is still unclear as to whether or not\nDel Zotto will see his name engraved permanently on the mug, as rules state you\nmust play 41 regular season games to earn the honour, whereas Del Zotto only\ntook part in seven.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He may not have been on the ice when the final buzzer sounded in the St. Louis Blues\u2019 Game Seven win in the NHL\u2019s Stanley Cup Finals, but that could not stop the shine in Robert Thomas\u2019 eyes last Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24010","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\/2019\/06\/2019-06-20-09.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6fg","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 02:27:15","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\/24010","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=24010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}