Sportsnet had a microphone on Gavin McKenna‘s mother as the No. 1 pick took his rookie lap at Scotiabank Arena on Tuesday. She needed nine words.
“What the hell, my son is in the NHL,” Krystal McKenna said.
She was standing against the glass in her son’s No. 92 Maple Leafs jersey, alongside one of her daughters and part of a family group that numbered 14 in the building. In a second clip she wiped away tears while complimenting how her son looked out there.
“Oh my God, it’s so crazy,” she said, per NHL.com.
McKenna’s former Penn State teammates were there too, and the group ended up taking a selfie with him through the glass.
Who is Gavin McKenna’s mom?
Krystal is a teacher at a school in Whitehorse, Yukon, which is where her son grew up and where he was still living when the hockey world started paying attention. She has been fielding this kind of thing for a while now.
When McKenna was taken first overall in the WHL draft at 14, she described colleagues filing in and out of her classroom to congratulate her. She had gone out for a run and come back to 29 missed messages on her phone.
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She also said back then that her son had barely put a hockey stick down since he learned to walk and talk, and supplied a photo to prove it, showing him as a toddler asleep with a stick, a puck and a glove.
Twelve years on, the kid in that photo is the second player from the Yukon to reach the NHL this century and the fourth ever. His debut itself was a modest one, finishing minus-2 with one shot on goal in 15:19 as Toronto lost 3-2 to Montreal, but he wasn’t inclined to dwell on that.
“There’s not much I’ll forget about this day,” McKenna said.
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