Florida Panthers winger Mackie Samoskevich, a native of Sandy Hook, Connecticut, brought the Stanley Cup to the Sandy Hook Elementary School Memorial to honor the 20 children and six adult staff members who were killed in the 2012 tragedy.
He also posed with the cup next to a kindergarten project he did and took it to the ice rink he grew up playing in:
Samoskevich, 22, indeed grew up to be a hockey player.
He played his first full season for the Panthers in 2024-25, scoring 15 goals alongside 16 assists in 72 games, and was minus-four on the season. He only appeared in four games during the Stanley Cup playoffs, notching an assist.
But his hockey journey began in the Newtown area.
“It’s definitely special to bring it here,” Samoskevich told Justin DeVellis of News12 Connecticut after bringing the Stanley Cup to the Newtown Youth Academy. “The Boston Bruins brought it here in 2013, and I was one of those kids playing hockey with them, so it’s pretty cool to see it come full circle.”
At the time of the Sandy Hook tragedy, Samoskevich and his twin sister Maddy were enrolled at Reed Intermediate, a school for fifth and sixth graders. Their school went into a four-hour lockdown at the time of the shooting.
“I just remember sitting in that dark classroom for the longest time and just not knowing what was going on,” Samoskevich told Scott Wheeler of The Athletic in 2021. “It was scary.”
But as an elementary school student, Samoskevich had attended Sandy Hook, just as Maddy and their older sister Melissa had. Their family home was a 10-minute walk from the school. They knew several of the victims who died in the shooting. So Samoskevich brought back the Stanley Cup to the memorial to honor them.