AURORA, Ont. — The garage door on Robert Thomas’ childhood home hums quietly as it climbs up the tracking, and Scott Thomas, Robert’s dad, appears.
Scott was in the kitchen cooking a dish called “Marry Me” chicken that will be coming out of the oven soon.
In the meantime, the proud father points behind a bike rack to an enlarged picture of the St. Louis Blues center. There’s a couch and three TVs, where family and friends watched the 2019 Stanley Cup run, and a 14-foot Blues banner that gets displayed during the playoffs. There’s also a shelf with hockey equipment left behind by NHLers Matthew and Brady Tkachuk and Mitch Marner.
“That’s Matthew’s Calgary stuff, and Mitch’s helmet is up there somewhere,” Scott says.
Just a few feet from that shelf, there’s a changing corner where neighborhood kids would put on their pads before stepping onto the Thomas’ backyard rink.
“This whole area is heated, and it’s where they’d get ready,” he says.
A picture of Robert Thomas hangs in his parents’ garage. (Jeremy Rutherford / The Athletic)
The door opens to the backyard, where you expect to see the rink, but instead there’s a tiki hut overlooking a curling sheet. Yes, now that Thomas is 25 years old and moved on, Scott and his wife, Deb, play…
