{"id":25291,"date":"2019-11-22T20:16:45","date_gmt":"2019-11-23T01:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25291"},"modified":"2019-11-22T20:16:54","modified_gmt":"2019-11-23T01:16:54","slug":"father-son-hockey-duo-gymnast-champion-land-in-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/father-son-hockey-duo-gymnast-champion-land-in-hall-of-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"Father\/son hockey duo, gymnast champion land in Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For the Gardners, Dave and Ryan, hockey\nis a family affair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, it was only fitting that the two\ntook to the stage at St. Andrew\u2019s College for the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame\ninduction dinner together, each donning their green jackets as two of the\nnewest members of the hallowed hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGrandfathers, fathers, sons, brothers,\u201d\nsaid emcee Rod Black when recounting the Gardner connection to the game. \u201cYou\ntalk about generational hockey players, how about our own three generation\nhockey team?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With thousands of professional hockey\ngames under their belts, father Dave in North American leagues and son Ryan a\nhousehold name across the Swiss hockey landscape, each took the time to thank\nthose who have helped them reach the latest stage in their careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the thing was, we had the\nopportunity,\u201d said Dave, reminiscing about his own father, Cal\u2019s, time with the\nNHL\u2019s Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins. \u201cThe opportunity was there for\nkids to play the game. When I look around here, I see the same thing. We have\nfive arenas here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s baseball diamonds, there\u2019s\nsoccer courts, there\u2019s just everything for them to be able to get involved in\nsports. I think that\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He recounted his parents\u2019 insistence\nthat hockey not be the only sport he partook in, akin to the philosophies of\nhockey greats like Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux; in the summers, his days\nwere often spent outside of the rink on the diamond, or on a golf course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe played as much sports as we could.\nAnd I think that was the key,\u201d said Dave, who added \u201cOh, and I forgot one more\nthing\u2026your education.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A graduate of St. Michael\u2019s College in\nToronto, Dave thanked those at the school and at York University who helped him\nalong in his journey, including a former St. Mike\u2019s teacher who was in\nattendance at the dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For son Ryan, whose career spanned two\ndecades in the Swiss league, he credited \u201cgrowing up in a rink\u201d as the\nmotivator to following in both his father\u2019s and grandfather\u2019s footsteps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt just came naturally,\u201d said Ryan. \u201cI\nwas very lucky to have my grandfather and my dad, and other people in Aurora\nwho were always around, talking about the game, it was the way it was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Echoing his dad\u2019s sentiments, Ryan was\nquick to acknowledge the abundance of ice opportunities around town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was a good pond on Bathurst, we\nused to shovel it off, and my buddies and I would go and just skate\u2026my dad and\nI would just drive around looking for ponds to go skate, and I\u2019m lucky I had a\ncoach like this guy here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Romagnoli, who now resides in Chicago\nwith his family, brought his own kids to Aurora to celebrate the big night, a\nculmination of a gymnastic career that brought him to the height of the NCAA\nhonours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cardinal Carter high school graduate\ntook in the moment while acknowledging his fellow inductees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRyan and I went to school together,\u201d\nsaid Mr. Romagnoli. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know each other, I\u2019m two years older\u2026but the\npeople you meet along the way, it\u2019s always really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He thanked Lowell McClenny, a fellow\nhonoured member and anchor of the former Sportsbeat Aurora, for the initial\nnomination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLowell is a longtime family friend, he\nknew all of the athletes in Aurora. He basically documented Aurora\u2019s sports\nhistory, so it was very cool to be nominated by Lowell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also made sure to acknowledge his\nwife, Jenna, and three children for helping him along his path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t usually get an opportunity\nlike this to thank all of the people who made you who you are, and continue to\ndefine who you are. And my people are here with me tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gardners and Mr. Romagnoli join longtime golf volunteer Jim Clark as well as Aurora Ducks founder Reg Chappell as this year\u2019s inducted class into the hall of fame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jake Courtepatte <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the Gardners, Dave and Ryan, hockey is a family affair. So, it was only fitting that the two took to the stage at St. Andrew\u2019s College for the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame induction dinner together, each donning their green jackets as two of the newest members of the hallowed hall. \u201cGrandfathers, fathers, sons, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"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":[4,5,24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6zV","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 10:29:31","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\/25291","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=25291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}