{"id":35141,"date":"2026-05-09T13:22:50","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T13:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/?p=35141"},"modified":"2026-05-09T14:51:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T14:51:00","slug":"two-stanely-cups-a-gold-medal-and-a-ride-in-an-air-force-thunderbird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/state-news\/florida\/two-stanely-cups-a-gold-medal-and-a-ride-in-an-air-force-thunderbird\/%20","title":{"rendered":"Two Stanley Cups, a Gold Medal, and a Ride in an Air Force Thunderbird"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Photo Credit floridapanthers.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By Andrew Stevens<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I always love it when different worlds we appreciate come together for an experience. I\u2019m a big hockey fan and obviously this is the best time of the year with the Stanley Cup Playoffs ongoing (<em><strong>Go Ducks!<\/strong><\/em>). My hockey journey is a bit wild, but that\u2019s not the story here today. However, I will note that one of my favorite players growing up was Keith Tkachuk. I absolutely loved the way he played the game \u2013 a big physical presence that absolutely owned the ice every time he got out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keith now has two kids playing in the NHL (<em>how am I this old\u2026<\/em>) and I\u2019m also a big fan of theirs now too. Both Matthew and Brady Tkachuk brought home the Gold medal in the Olympics this year for the United States which is amazing! However, I quickly became a fan of Matthew during his early years in Calgary and then started following almost every game of his since his trade to Florida. It\u2019s been a heck of a ride since that time with two Stanley Cup victories and three appearances in the finals over the past three seasons for the Panthers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-twitter\"><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I feel the need, the need for speed \ud83d\ude0e <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Hu0lXY0g2m\">pic.twitter.com\/Hu0lXY0g2m<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Florida Panthers (@FlaPanthers) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FlaPanthers\/status\/2052885330018083211?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 8, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Unfortunately, Florida didn\u2019t make the playoffs this season. However, that didn\u2019t stop Matthew from having an incredible experience at this time of year! This weekend is the Fort Lauderdale airshow in Florida and Matthew was given the opportunity to fly as a civilian passenger with the Thunderbirds. Two Stanley Cups, an Olympic Gold Medal, and a ride in an F-16 (<em>all in two years<\/em>) \u2013 talk about living the dream!  So yeah, it\u2019s always fun when worlds we love come together \u2013 this time the aviation and hockey world for me. Also, I totally want a #26 \u201cThunderbirds\u201d Florida Panthers hockey jersey! I would absolutely wear that at Oshkosh this year!  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can read more about one of Matthew Tkachuk\u2019s greatest experiences of his life on the NHL.com: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/panthers\/news\/tkachuk-has-one-of-the-greatest-experiences-of-my-life-flying-with-u-s-air-force-thunderbirds\">https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/panthers\/news\/tkachuk-has-one-of-the-greatest-experiences-of-my-life-flying-with-u-s-air-force-thunderbirds<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-twitter\"><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Things just got real \ud83d\ude0e <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/vu8l2rw1Mr\">pic.twitter.com\/vu8l2rw1Mr<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Florida Panthers (@FlaPanthers) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FlaPanthers\/status\/2052826541000712385?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 8, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-twitter\"><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Matthew in motion \ud83d\udca8 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/pTY6oCzSjT\">pic.twitter.com\/pTY6oCzSjT<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Florida Panthers (@FlaPanthers) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FlaPanthers\/status\/2052868470941851855?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 8, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo Credit floridapanthers.com By Andrew Stevens I always love it when different worlds we appreciate come together for an experience. I\u2019m a big hockey fan and obviously this is the best time of the year with the Stanley Cup Playoffs ongoing (Go Ducks!). My hockey journey is a bit wild, but that\u2019s not the story [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":35143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-front-page-slider","category-florida"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/MT-AFT.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35141"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35150,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35141\/revisions\/35150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}