B.C. hockey star does his hometown proud

Brett Connolly has passed Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid and even his Washington Capitals teammate Alex Ovechkin as the featured player in the most-watched NHL video in Twitter history.

Connolly, who grew up in Prince George and captained the Cougars before going on to the NHL, may not score highlight reel goals as often as those other three stars but his kindness has made the 25-year-old the toast of the sports world and a social media sensation.

Two Sundays ago in Washington, before the start of Game 2 of the first-round Stanley Cup Playoffs matchup between the Capitals and the Columbus Blue Jackets, Connolly was on the ice with his teammates for the pregame warmup skate. While waiting for his turn on a shooting drill, he spotted a young girl wearing a Caps jersey standing at ice level. He picked up a puck, skated over, made eye contact with her and flipped the puck over the glass.

Except it was caught by a man in the second row, who handed it to an older, taller boy beside her.

As captured by an alert NBC cameraman, the disappointed look on the girl’s face is heartbreaking. Connolly saw it, too. He got another puck, skated back over and soft-tossed the second puck over the glass.

That puck was caught by another man in the second row, who passed it down to the young boy on the other side of the girl. Now Connolly is visibly annoyed. He thumps the glass in front of the girl with his bare hand, then returns with a third puck.

“If he could rip that pane of glass down and just hand it to her, he would,” one of the announcers jokes.

Finally, six-year-old Keelan Moxley gets her puck. She jumps up and down with excitement and if her smile could be harnessed for power, the Site C dam would be completely unnecessary.

Call it the most memorable assist to date of Connolly’s 346 career NHL games so far.

In the first 24 hours after the NHL shared the 55-second clip, it was seen more than seven million times. It’s been seen tens of millions of times more since then.

Various news outlets, including the Washington Post and CBC, tracked down young Keelan and told the full story.

While the announcers thought all three of the kids in the front were related and Keelan was simply the last to get a puck, that wasn’t the case.

Keelan’s mom and dad had brought their daughter to just her second Capitals game. Their seats were a few rows up but fans young and old often make their way down to the glass during the warmup to see the players close up.

Capitals owner Ted Leonsis announced Wednesday that he had invited Keelan and her family to watch Saturday’s Game 5 back in Washington from seats right along the glass and he would meet with them before the game.

The video’s ongoing popularity further proves that while sports fans love the extraordinary plays by gifted athletes, they really appreciate seeing those same athletes being kind and considerate to young fans.

Connolly’s actions were further proof of the old saying that you can take the kid out of the town (and send him off to the NHL) but there’s no taking the town out of the kid.

Neil Godbout is managing editor of The Prince George Citizen.