{"id":24360,"date":"2019-08-02T11:59:22","date_gmt":"2019-08-02T15:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24360"},"modified":"2019-08-08T09:03:13","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T13:03:13","slug":"a-hockey-heros-welcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/a-hockey-heros-welcome\/","title":{"rendered":"A Hockey Hero’s Welcome"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

Lord Stanley\u2019s Cup made an appearance at\nMachell Park on Monday, alongside newly-minted NHL champion Robert Thomas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a spectacle for the hundreds of\nwell-wishers and fans lined up around the bandstand: pulling up in an orange\nconvertible with the most coveted trophy in hockey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, the humble Thomas, upon taking to\nthe stage alongside Mayor Tom Mrakas, had plenty of thanks and praise for those\nwho helped him along his incredible journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just have a lot of people to thank\nfor a moment like this,\u201d said Thomas. \u201cObviously, Mayor Mrakas, everyone from\nthe town, I couldn\u2019t thank them enough. And thank you to all you guys for\nshowing up, it\u2019s a pretty special day for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo be able to share it with the Aurora\ncommunity, let\u2019s make this a fun day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been amazing to have you back in\nthe town of Aurora,\u201d said Mrakas. \u201cI just want to give you a huge thank you for\nallowing us to share in this special moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thomas, who posted six points in the St.\nLouis Blues\u2019 playoff run and finally got his day with the Cup after it made a\nnumber of stops in York Region, just turned 20 years old this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Cup goes all around Europe and\nNorth America over the summer, and every one of the team\u2019s members only gets\none day with it, so for Robbie to spend some time with us on his special day is\nincredible,\u201d said Mayor Mrakas, who hosted a question and answer period with\nThomas on stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mrakas listed off all of Thomas\u2019\nachievements at his young age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou won gold at the World Juniors, you\nwere the OHL playoff\u2019s MVP last year, and now you\u2019ve capped an amazing season\nwith a Stanley Cup win,\u201d said Mrakas. \u201cBut it started with seven years with the\nYork-Simcoe Express, as well as two years playing with St. Andrew\u2019s College\nU-16 team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thomas also played volleyball, soccer,\nlacrosse, and baseball in the area growing up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI tried to play as many sports as I\ncould,\u201d said Thomas. \u201cI would try to get as much involved in the Aurora\ncommunity as I could. I think around fifteen, sixteen was when I started\nfocusing mainly on hockey. That\u2019s kind of when it took over.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He recalled how the Thomas family had an\nice rink in the backyard growing up, something he called \u201cvery important\u201d in\nhelping achieve his dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy family has definitely been huge,\u201d\nsaid Thomas. \u201cI definitely wouldn\u2019t be here without their support. My dad built\nme a backyard rink right from when I was four years old, to two years after I\nleft the house, which was seventeen, eighteen. So, he was building it for a\nwhile. It was great, all the neighbours, all my friends I played hockey with,\nwould always come over and play shinny. So, yeah, the support that they have\ngiven me has definitely helped me to get to where I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An ice cream lover, Thomas and the Cup\nmade a quick stop at Dairy Queen after the event, where he enjoyed a Blizzard\nout of the Mug.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lord Stanley\u2019s Cup made an appearance at Machell Park on Monday, alongside newly-minted NHL champion Robert Thomas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24354,"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":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/2019-08-01-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6kU","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 12:19:45","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\/24360","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=24360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}