Calgary Flames Throwback Thursday: Gaudreau and Voracek at ASG

Less than two weeks before the season starts! Let’s look at a fun time with Calgary Flames forward Johnny Gaudreau at his first All-Star game.

Hello, Calgary Flames fans and welcome to another edition of Throwback Thursday! The segment we here at Flame for Thought bring you on Thursdays about something that happened in the past, whether that was last season or 25 years ago.

Last time, we looked at an emotional time with Matt Stajan and an emotional penalty shot he had. Today, let’s flip the mood a little bit and look at when Johnny Gaudreau was in his rookie year and went to his first ever All-Star game.

That time, the All-Star rosters were somewhat different than how they were picked last season. And at that time, I believe there were four rookies that participated. And with a last-minute injury on the Toews team, Johnny got the chance to be that last player to join.

Related Story: Throwback Thursday - Matt Stajan's emotional penalty shot

Now at ASG, before the actual games, they do these fun obstacle course type of games. And one event they have is a Breakaway challenge. Each team chooses three players from that team to do a breakaway challenge. Basically, if you’re watching a standard hockey game, it’s like what you see in a shootout.

With the ASG being held in Columbus, any Columbus Blue Jackets player got the most amount of cheers out of all the players there. And those players would always be the most “extra”; they’d do the most on the ice to amp up the crowd some more. And CBJ player at the time, Ryan Johansen, was one of them.

Johansen was up, he stops in the front of the goalie, and goes to get more ammo. And he grabs a child. He grabs this kid, goes back in front of the goalie, and the kid gets to shoot it on the goalie. An awesome moment for this kid, he’ll be telling all his friends about it!

Now, before we move on, we need to mention Johnny Gaudreau’s size. And I think you may know where I’m going with this.

Johnny Hockey, while skilled, is definitely not one of the biggest guys on the ice. A small stature and at only 160 lbs, he’s typically one of the smallest guys on the ice at any given moment.

So now we get Philadelphia Flyers forward, Jakub Voracek, who’s on the same All-Star team as Gaudreau. And seeing how Johansen went and got more ammo, he decided he needed to do the same. Johansen went and grabbed a kid to use, so looks like Voracek will do the same.

As we can see, it’s similar to Johansen! Voracek goes back and grabs this kid, goes back in front of the goalie, and the kid gets to shoot it on the goalie. An awesome moment for this kid, he’ll be telling all his friends about it!

Look at all the reactions from the players in the background in that picture.

Next: 14 days until the season starts - #14 Theo Fleury

This was definitely an All-Star game to remember. I mean, maybe not as iconic as last year’s with the whole John Scott fiasco where it felt like a well-scripted feel-good movie. But it’s up there.