- Jordan Martinook rolled into Leduc, Alberta with the Stanley Cup in a green Corvette on Tuesday
- He is the first Leduc kid to win the Cup and bring it back home
- Read below for Martinook’s quotes, the crowd at the rec centre and the award the city gave him
Jordan Martinook got his day with the Stanley Cup on Tuesday, and he spent all of it in Leduc, Alberta.
The Hurricanes forward picked up a green Corvette from Lakewood Chevrolet in Edmonton, posed for a few photos with the staff, then drove the trophy roughly 20 miles south to the Leduc Recreation Centre.
Earlier that morning the Cup touched down at Edmonton International Airport and got an RCMP escort across the highway into town.
Martinook told Global News why the whole day pointed back to the place he came from.
“It’s the most incredible trophy and I wanted to share with my hometown.”
He is the first Leduc product to win a Cup and bring it back. Locals and fans from around the Edmonton region lined up inside the rec centre for a photo and a chance to put their hands on it. NHL.com put the crowd at around 3,000.
The wait in line turned into a storm surge. Check out the video Leduc city councillor Jill Spinks posted:
That building is where Martinook grew up, and walking into it to that kind of noise got to the 34-year-old.
“I grew up playing here. I worked out in this gym. I ran around this track.”
Leduc handed him its Citizen of Distinction Award during the event, and he spent the rest of the afternoon signing autographs and taking pictures. The city posted photos from the day:
This is the first championship of a 12-year career, eight seasons of it in Carolina. The Hurricanes closed out Vegas in Game 6 on June 14 for the second title in franchise history, 20 years after the first one.
Waiting his turn was never really the plan either. Martinook crashed Seth Jarvis’ day with the Cup in Winnipeg on Monday, a day before his own:
Asked what the trophy means after all those years of chasing it, Martinook went back to being a kid in Leduc.
“I think it’s a culmination of your life of hard work and something you dream about since you’re a little kid.”
