He tallied twice for his hometown team, memories that Calgary Flames farmhand Hunter Shinkaruk will cherish for the rest of his life.
But this wasn’t just a cross-it-off-your-bucket-list-and-move-on sorta thing.
That’s not how his childhood dream unfolded.
“Obviously, scoring for Calgary was cool but, at the end of the day, I don’t really want to have just two goals for Calgary. I want a lot more,” said Shinkaruk, currently toiling for the American Hockey League’s Stockton Heat. “The thing that pushes me is knowing when I came up last year and played in that offensive role that I’m paid to do, I succeeded.