SHEA THEODORE, DEFENSEMAN

The Vegas Golden Knights are back on the ice with their new season underway and that means your favorite mascot Chance the Gila Monster is back in action too. I’ve dusted off my skates and have been rolling around the rink with one of my favorite Canadian defensemen. So, without further ado, let me introduce this month’s Vegas Golden Knights Collectible Player Bookmark star, Shea Theodore! 

The 26-year-old was inducted into his “knighthood” on June 21, 2017. During the NHL Expansion Draft, Shea was traded by the Anaheim Ducks to the Vegas Golden Knights to become one of the “Golden Misfits” on the roster from the team’s exciting and memorable first-year run to the Stanley Cup Final.

The British Columbia native started skating when he was only three and, believe it or not, not as a hockey player. “Growing up in Canada it (skating) definitely starts at a young age. I started as early as I could. I couldn’t play till I was five, so I did a figure skating, learn-to-skate program from when I was three to five years old. That gave me a little bit of an edge. It was definitely a good jumpstart to me playing hockey,” Shea told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

At 15 years old, Theodore was drafted in the third round of the 2010 WHL Bantam Draft, by the Seattle Thunderbirds in the Western Hockey League (WHL). That’s when an NHL dream career started to take shape, “...as opposed to ‘what am I going to do for the rest of my life’,” explained Shea during a Yahoo! News interview. 

VGK fans can expect to see a lot more of Shea in the Fortress. Before his second season in Las Vegas, he signed a seven-year contract extension with the Golden Knights. It remains a cherished moment for #27. “Signing that long-term extension, that’s all I ever wanted,” he told the Las Vegas Weekly. “I wanted to be here. I wanted to be that guy for this organization.”