Jones celebrates day with Stanley Cup at community hockey rink

IRVING, Texas -- For Seth Jones, there was no other place he wanted to spend his day with the Stanley Cup than at his local rink in the Dallas area.

The 30-year-old defenseman capped his 12th NHL season by winning his first Stanley Cup championship with the Florida Panthers after being acquired in a trade from the Chicago Blackhawks on March 1.

“My family is here. This is where I call home in the summertime when I’m not in Florida. I skate here, do a lot of things around this area. This is the place I wanted to come back to,” Jones said. “I’ll take [the Stanley Cup] to the golf course, I’ll do a little party with some friends and family tonight. The best part about winning the Cup is getting to share it with the people that care about you and have been with you through that process of getting to where you are.”

Jones spent nearly two hours on Thursday at the Children’s Health StarCenter Valley Ranch, a community rink in the Dallas area, taking pictures with youth hockey players and their parents, signing jerseys, Crocs, sneakers, player cards, pucks, and even filming a TikTok with a Miss Texas pageant winner who plays on one of the girls teams at the rink.

“I spent a lot of time here for a lot of different coaches, lot of different teams,” Jones said. “Without the development of Texas youth hockey and the growth that we’ve seen over the last 10, 15 years, I know I wouldn’t be standing here today. I wanted to give back, show the kids here that just because it’s not a huge hockey market, things are still possible. You can still make the NHL."

Jones was joined by his brother Caleb, who signed with the Pittsburgh Penguins on July 1 after playing for the Los Angeles Kings last season, and mother Amy. Being at one of the rinks she used to bring Seth to as a child led to some fun trips down memory lane for the hockey mom.

“When he first started, he played for two house leagues,” Amy said. “I just remember him loving it. Just seeing what a good little skater he was from a very early age, I think that’s what I remember the most. Any time they would put him at forward, he would be flying up the ice, but he would always forget the puck. So, he never made it down the ice [with it]. He ended up just always being on defense. They’d play him at forward, but he’d always play defense. He just always stayed back. We’d be like, ‘Why are you doing that?’ and he’d say ‘I just don’t want anyone to score.’”

Jones spent five years playing youth hockey in the Dallas area before going up to Michigan to continue his development. It’s a path that youth hockey players in Texas no longer need to choose to make their dreams of playing in the NHL come true.

“I think there was a time here in youth hockey when I was growing up where if you were a good player or a great player and had potential, everyone would tell you to leave. Everyone would tell you to go to Chicago, go up north to Minnesota and Michigan and places like that,” Jones said. “But in the last few years, just listening to the coaches [here] and keeping in touch with them, there’s actually kids from the north coming down here to play. It’s kind of turning in that sense.”