Father, daughter gifted free Oilers playoff tickets from strangers

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Die-hard Edmonton Oilers fan Shawn Mullin and his nine-year-old daughter Audrey had a Father’s Day weekend they’ll never forget.

The father and daughter duo from Swift Current, Sask., are always up for some fun adventures, so they decided to make the near seven-hour drive to Edmonton to soak in the playoff atmosphere at the Oilers watch party.

Unfortunately, their trip started off as a bit of a nightmare. First, their car collided with a deer and hit the ditch halfway to Edmonton, but they ultimately decided to trudge on with their trip. When they arrived at their hotel, they had to change rooms because it was filled with bed bugs.

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When they eventually got to Ice District, the lines to get in were so long due to the packed Shania Twain concert. With the weather on the chilly side, they planned to wait it out and, in the meantime, go buy Audrey a sweater to warm up.

It was on the way back when the trip took a sudden and positive turn. Approached by two complete strangers, Joe Whitehead and Joanne Whitehead, they were asked plainly, “Do you have tickets?”

“I was in utter disbelief. In shock honestly,” said Mullin.

“I’m thinking, what? A stranger in the middle of the street invited us to the Stanley Cup Final? The hardest ticket to get across the country?”

‘Almost didn’t feel real’

Mullin had been in the building before as a broadcaster for the Western Hockey League’s Swift Current Broncos, but he’d never been inside Rogers Place for a playoff game.

Once they got inside the arena, the surprises kept coming as the two found their seats were in the very front row along the glass, as close as you can get to all the action. With so many being set up for scams nowadays, it would be within reason if Mullin was skeptical — but this was real.

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The Whiteheads just wanted to do a good deed.

“They genuinely wanted us to have a good experience. It was just pure kindness,” said Mullin.

“Their generosity and kindness and the lessons they passed onto my daughter is what I’ll remember more than being able to attend Game 4 of Stanley Cup Final. They ended up creating an experience my daughter and I will never forget.“

The kind gestures didn’t end there. During warm-up, a young boy approached Audrey and gave her a game puck, putting a giant smile on her face.

“It almost didn’t feel real, until the players came out for warm-up. My daughter said to me, ‘I thought I would cry’, because I was an emotional guy, but I was just still in shock,” said Mullin.

Mullin said the whole situation was so coincidental — all of it had to come together for that fateful moment to come to fruition and make for an unforgettable Father’s Day weekend.

“As a parent you’re thinking about all those things like what’s the weather going to be like? Will she enjoy the watch party? We had bed bugs in our first hotel room, and we hit a deer on the way up, we get downtown and the lines are huge, you’re thinking holy cow … this trip is a disaster,” said Mullin, who shares custody of Audrey with his ex-wife.

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“But so many of them ended up being funny coincidences. Had the weather not been cold, and the lineups big, all those things had to line up so we had to walk across the place in that exact moment.“

Paying it forward

That lesson of kindness and generosity didn’t take long to have an impact on Audrey. When they were leaving Rogers Place after the big win, they came across a family that had fallen on hard times.

Audrey came up with an idea.

“Audrey said, ‘Dad, some people were kind to us tonight, we should be kind to them and pay it forward,’ so we helped them out and gave them some money,” said Mullin.

“It can turn into a domino effect. I’m grateful for not only the gesture and the experience, but the impact it’s had on my daughter.”

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