For only the second time in city history, the Stanley Cup was hand delivered here by a champion. Washington Capitals forward Brett Connolly escorted Lord Stanley's holy hockey grail into CN Centre, Monday, and about 2,500 people came out to see it and express their pride to the hometown player who grew up on P.G. Minor Hockey Association ice, then carried on to the Cariboo Cougars major midget program, then to the WHL's Prince George Cougars hockey club for his entire junior career.
He knows his way around CN Centre in his sleep, and it was like a dream for him to present that shimmering trophy so many boys and girls grow up idolizing.
"It's just mesmerizing, really," said Angus MacFarlane, one of the hundreds of PGMHA kids who wore their jerseys for front-row seating at the Cup presentation show. "It's insane to be that close. It's crazy. It's been so many places. If it could talk, I'll bet it would tell a wonderful story."
Even Connolly's chapter is a great story. He was the Canadian Hockey League's Rookie of the Year in 2008-09, and represented Canada at the Ivan Hlinka and two World Junior Championship tournaments (he won World Junior silver and bronze plus Ivan Hlinka gold) among others.
Injuries set back the WHL star and affected his draft position when he broke into the NHL, taken sixth overall by the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2010.
There was speculation that the Lightning organization mishandled his early development into the NHL, or that he was destined to be a career underachiever when he was traded to the Boston Bruins.
Over two seasons in the B's uniform he started to show signs of the offensive threat he was expected to be. The Washington Capitals saw this and signed him as a free agent in 2016.
He didn't let them down. Penciled in as a third- or fourth-line depth player, Connolly still put up 15 goals per season the past two years in a Caps jersey, and when the team went on it's championship run this past spring, Connolly broke through with six goals and the most important assist in Washington's NHL franchise history.
With the score tied 3-3 late in the third period of Game 5, Washington leading Vegas three games to one in the Stanley Cup Final, Andre Burakovsky corralled the puck in the corner to the left of Vegas goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. He spotted Connolly cut, unchecked, into the high slot. He fed Connolly a pass and the P.G. boy unloaded a howitzer of a slapshot through Fleury's five-hole. Fleury got enough of the shot to keep it out of the net, but not out of his feet. Lars Eller swept the loose puck into the net, and it was the goal that won Washington it's first ever Stanley Cup.
"When I have kids, it's something I'll be able to tell them - such a big moment, such an amazing moment. I assisted on a Stanley Cup-winning goal," Connolly told The Citizen on Monday, only a few feet away from the glittering trophy, only a few feet away from Cougars centre ice where he scored so many memorable goals as a kid.
It was in that CN Centre room where the dream of winning a Stanley Cup really sunk in.
"Like a lot of kids playing here, everyone does it (fantasizes about hoisting that amazing mug)," he said.
"It just became a reality for me somehow. You get into this hockey pool and you keep working and working, and hopefully you find a good team and a good group of guys. Obviously it's such an amazing moment. There are no words for something like that. It's incredible."
Yvonne Shuman epitomized the power the Stanley Cup has over Canadians. She stood for two hours in a walking cast, nursing a broken ankle, in order to get up close to the chalice. She endured the discomfort "because who doesn't want to see and touch the Stanley Cup? I'm 50 years old. I'll probably never get a chance to do this again," she said.
Member of Parliament Todd Doherty was more than just the master of ceremonies for the Cup festivities on Monday. Before his political life, he was one of the spearheads of the Cariboo Cougars major midget program that Connolly played for as a teen.
"I'm a hockey MP," he said.
"We coach, we volunteer, because we want to pay back to the sport, but also we want to give every kid, every player, an opportunity, a better chance to succeed in the world - to go on to that next level in sports, or academics, or whatever it is in life. Every once in awhile you get an opportunity to experience something like this (one of them winning the big prize), and it ranks right up there. It's a very proud day, and what makes it so proud is seeing how Brett is handling himself throughout all the adversity that he's faced in has career. There's a great family and a great kid."
Want proof of his caring character? Google the viral video of Connolly persevering in getting a little girl an NHL puck during one game's warmup. He followed that up by making her a special Caps superfan thereafter.
He and his wife Katrina were two of the main organizers of the Capitals Canine Calendar fundraiser for Homeward Trails Animal Rescue.
He is a frequent participant in charity events, and the whole Cup appearance at CN Centre was a money-making opportunity for the Brock Hirsche Memorial Scholarship Fund at the University of Lethbridge. Hirsche, who died of cancer in April, was a WHL teammate of Connolly's with the Cougars.
The fundraising was brisk. The speeches were touching. The ebullient crowd reaction was as palpable as the worrisome forest fire smoke in the air outside. Cougars vice-president of business Andy Beesley said there was naturally some stress in the planning and execution of the public event, but when about 2,500 people lined up on a Monday afternoon in summer for their chance to see hockey's silver tower alongside a local hockey hero, it made every ounce of effort worth that 34.5-pound reward.
Since we're talking about calculations, Beesley pointed out just how improbable this whole "surreal" event really was. Consdier, first, that very few minor hockey players go on to the WHL.
Very few of those get to play for their hometown junior team. Fewer still go on to make it to the NHL. And a very rare few ever win the Stanley Cup.
Drilling deeper into those numbers, Connolly is only the third Prince George Cougar to every, win the trophy, the others being Dustin Byfuglien with Chicago in 2010 and Zdeno Chara with Boston in 2011.
That makes Connolly the first Canadian in that exclusive group.
"That's correct, and, I might add, the first Cougar to bring the Cup here," said Beesley.
"The two other guys were unable to bring it here, they had their own hometowns, so this has been our very first opportunity to have somebody bring it" with Cougars blood in their veins.
Reacting as someone who was a longtime hockey dad, volunteer with PGMHA, and connected to the Cariboo Cougars prior to his call to the WHL front office, Beesley said this special day indeed transcends the Cougars organization.
"I think it's validation that Prince George is on the hockey map as well as on the world map," he said.
"It's well known as a hockey town. We support two junior hockey teams here, plus the major midgets, etc.
The fact that the Cougars, through all our triumphs and tribulations, continue to still draw thousands of people a night, and considering a lot of our fans saw Brett when he was playing, as well as our other NHL stars, it's pretty cool to see how Prince George has been part of this whole evolution - involved, and in some senses responsible for, some of the successes that have happened here. Ultimately we're just really proud of Brett."
Brett was proud too - of his supportive family, his positive friends, his teammates past and present and most of all his formative community.
"This is such an amazing day," he said.
"I'm just so glad I was able to do this."
