Zach Hyman
Eight Hannukah gifts
Zach Hyman will be celebrating the holiday season, but instead of decorating a Christmas tree, he lights a menorah. Hyman is one of the few Jewish hockey players to play in the NHL. To help make his celebrations a little sweeter, we prepared eight gifts for the winger, one for each night of Hannukah.
Our first couple of gifts are traditional foods that get prepared for Hannukah. We got him a dozen sufganiyot, a donut that gets filled with jam, custard, or chocolate and topped with powdered sugar. We’ve also made him several plates of latkas. This is as much of a staple for the holiday as matza ball soup is to Passover. Naturally, we have prepared a side of apple sauce and sour cream to accompany the fried potato pancakes.
We wanted to give Hyman something that he could use at the rink. That’s why we decided to give him more powerplay time. This is not his specialty and he has instead spent more time killing penalties when on special teams. On this holiday season, we will give Hyman the chance to add a new dynamic to what has thus far been a disappointing powerplay.
Not only is Hyman a talented hockey player, but he’s also an accomplished children’s book author. Hyman has written three highly successful storybooks. His third present is a new book deal, allowing him to continue sharing his creativity with the world.
Hyman has proved that he is multitalented and has many interests. The Maple Leafs player founded a company called Eleven Gaming, written E11. Our next two gifts are directly intended to help the company. We are giving his team a Fortnite victory and more E11 content.
Hyman was raised in the City of Toronto. He also grew up a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, with his favourite player being Mats Sundin. Hyman’s next present is to be included on the very prestigious list of most famous Leafs fans. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t be recognized for his passion and loyalty to the blue and white.
We only have two gifts left. We wanted to be sure that we keep the personalized gifts fulfilling Hyman’s desires. That’s why we made two separate charitable donations. The charities we chose are ones that Hyman himself has been involved with, Right to Play and First Book Canada.
William Nylander
The gift of a public apology
When William Nylander was negotiating his current contract, he was heavily criticized by both the media and fans. A pair of the lamest names he was called were “selfish” and “Me-Lander” because he held out until Kyle Dubas and the Maple Leafs made him an offer he would accept.
They eventually settled on a six-year $6.9 million extension, that is looking extremely team-friendly already. Though both parties began far apart in their negotiating and Nylander missed 26 games, it is unfair to characterize him in a negative manner. Nylander was simply looking for a figure, which he felt was fair and wouldn’t settle for much less.
After Nylander’s teammate, Mitch Marner, went through contract disputes with the team and was also slandered for it, it became evident that fans were indiscriminate with their insults.
As a result, we have gotten Nylander a public apology for all the bad names that were flung in his direction.