Shannon got the word about the lemonade stand on Facebook and Travis Ulrich, a local hockey photographer who shot Murray's day with the Stanley Cup last summer, relayed the event to Murray. Gavin is also a goalie and decorated his lemonade stand with his first goalie stick that he painted black to look like the one Murray used in the World Cup while playing for Team North America.
He had no idea Murray was going to show up, but handled it like a true professional.
"Most kids would be very star struck, but he wasn't really like that," Shannon said. "I think he was actually more excited that Matt likes animals too."
Tweet from @Puck_Shots: Here's a closer look at the "transaction" between @penguins fan Gavin & @mattmurray_30 �� pic.twitter.com/DSzDNaRvZW
The Curries were all surprised that Murray hung around as long as he did. Shannon said he was there for almost 45 minutes chatting with Gavin about their two rescue dogs, playing hockey and growing up in the same neighborhood.
"We're really lucky to live where we are that we have so many guys that play in the NHL here and they're all so willing to give back to the community in any way they can, even if it's just using their name and the fact that they're a hockey player to help bring awareness to things to bring funds to things or anything like that and they're so willing to give back to their little fans," Shannon said. "That's who's important to them and it's nice to see.
"We were really taken aback that Matt came up and he was so genuine with Gavin and so kind and really gave Gavin his full attention."
The visit ended with Murray signing Gavin's black stick with a message that read, "To Gavin, keep being you, your friend Matt Murray." So inspired by the day's events,
Gavin started a GoFundMe page to collect
even more donations for charity.
After he'd kept his cool the whole time and raised $300, he then went back in the house, crumpled to the ground and lay there for a few seconds to collect himself.
"He was like, 'I can't believe Matt Murray came,'" Shannon said. "The rest of the day was pretty surreal."