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Staal shares Cup with hockey fans from far and wide
By KRIS KETONEN
Wednesday, July 22, 2009

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Connor McKinnon, 8, left, and Dylan Mannella, 10, both patients in the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre pediatric ward, pose with Jordan Staal and the Stanley Cup during his visit Tuesday morning.

If Tuesday‘s visit to Thunder Bay by hometown hockey player Jordan Staal and the Stanley Cup was anything, it was whirlwind.
One day is all the Pittsburgh Penguins star had, and there was so much to do: a visit to the pediatric ward at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, two hours at the Fort William Gardens posing for pictures with thousands of fans, a tour around the city taking photos with the Cup, throwing out the first pitch at the Northwoods League All-Star Game at Port Arthur Stadium, and then closing everything off with a private party.
There were fans to meet, interviews to do, pressure to be handled.
And Jordan Staal, a member of the 2009 Stanley Cup-winning Penguins, took it all in stride, going through the day as friendly and accommodating as could be.
But there was one thing eating at Staal leading up to Tuesday, his father Henry Staal divulged.
“He said he was nervous about the speech,” Henry Staal said, referring to some words the younger Staal was to say at the beginning of the public event at the Gardens.
“I said, ‘You play in front of 18,000 people in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs, you‘re nervous about the speech?‘” Henry Staal said with a laugh.
The speech, for the record, went fine, and about 1,800 people came through the doors for a photograph with Staal and the Cup. And they didn‘t come just from Thunder Bay. The line that wound its way across the Gardens floor and out to the street included people from as far away as Vancouver, Chicago and Dallas.
“It was amazing,” Staal said afterward. “Everyone just kept coming, more and more people.
“It‘s crazy,” he said when told that the line to get in stretched down Vickers Street. “I never really expected that at all. I was really hoping to get through everyone, really, and it didn‘t happen.
“It‘s just another sign of how much Thunder Bay loves hockey, and how they love Stanley, I guess.”

The two hours went by quickly at the Gardens, and there were still hundreds waiting for their moment with the Cup when time ran out. Among those was die-hard hockey fan Marta Adamovich, 56, from Vancouver, who was flown in for the event by her Thunder Bay friend Joan Hoskinson.
“I‘m just totally thrilled,” Adamovich said. “This would never happen in a bigger place like Vancouver. I will never get as close as I am today to the Stanley Cup or to a great hockey player like Jordan Staal, so it‘s such a fabulous opportunity.”
Adamovich and Hoskinson barely missed the cutoff. There were perhaps 20 people in front of them when noon rolled around.
Some frustration was evident among those who were still in line when the event ended, but Staal did his best to offset it with a final walk through the crowd, Cup hoisted high.
Earlier, Staal made a similar walk through the hospital‘s halls. Arriving in a black SUV at about 8:30 a.m., he entered through a door at the far end of the cafeteria. Several hospital staff members were eating breakfast or sipping coffee.
As the crowd of hospital managers gathered at the doorway in anticipation of Staal‘s arrival, it seemed as though the visit might have been kept secret – nobody but that small circle seemed to know what was about to happen.
Then the Cup entered, and people started noticing.
Those in the cafeteria stood for a better view. Cellphone cameras clicked. Staal carted the Cup toward the pediatric ward. Employees clapped as he passed, others watched from the upper levels, and the entourage following him grew steadily.
In the pediatric ward, a huge crowd gathered as dozens of people snapped pictures. Staal signed autographs on shirts, hats, paper, whatever, and posed for pictures at the front desk. Kids in hospital gowns, some sporting bandages and IVs, stood with Staal as cameras flashed.
One patient, a male 16-year-old, was too sick to make it to Staal, so Staal went to him. Before returning to the crowd, he made a stop at an isolation room. It was sealed, so he couldn‘t go in, but he walked to the windowed inner door so the occupant could get a glimpse of the Cup.
Connor McKinnon, 7, was there with his parents Brad and Kelli. A cancer patient, Connor – a “huger than huge” hockey fan – divides his time between Thunder Bay and Sick Kids in Toronto, and every time he goes there someone asks if he knows the NHL‘s Staal brothers, Brad said.
Eric Staal plays for the Carolina Hurricanes and brought the Cup home for a day in 2006, Marc Staal is with the New York Rangers, and Jared Staal is a Pheonix Coyotes prospect.
Now, Brad said, Connor – who had a hat signed and got his picture taken with Jordan Staal – will have a story to tell.
“The kids were so excited,” said Dr. George Derbyshire, the hospital‘s chief of pediatrics. “Sometimes life for some of the children can be quite challenging . . . this is just a ray of hope. This lad is a hometown hero, he‘s just a wonderful young man from a wonderful family. It gives an enthusiasm to people, a sense of hope, a sense of something to look forward to.”
As early as Staal‘s day started, though, he had nothing on John Miller. A Penguins fan, Miller found his place in line outside the Fort William Gardens at 6 a.m. Tuesday.
“This time, my team won it, so I wanted to see the Cup,” he said from his spot at the front of the line. “I can‘t wait to see it. I‘ve never actually seen the Cup.”
Afterwards, Miller said “it was great.”
He was joined in the early morning hours by Paul Mackett and his son Mitchell.
Mitchell, 11, is a Penguins fan, while Paul pulls for the Red Wings. Tuesday, Paul said, was “part of the deal.”
“I lost the deal, so I said I‘d be here early for him,” Paul said. “So we came for (6 a.m.).”
Paul said about six people were in line at 6:30 a.m., and the number grew steadily after that.
The Cup departs today for North Bay, hometown of Penguins assistant coach Mike Yeo.
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