San Jose Sharks players nicknamed Will Smith “Puppy” at the beginning of the season…but this isn’t that kind of dog story.
Instead, meet Smith’s dog Rigney, Macklin Celebrini’s Cali, Marc-Edouard Vlasic’s Piper, and Barclay Goodrow’s Harlee and Norman, and more, as San Jose Hockey Now presents a new edition of the Dogs of the Sharks!
Last Christmas, you got to meet San Jose Sharks dogs like Logan Couture’s Willa and Ernie, Mario Ferraro’s Wilder, Luke Kunin’s Rocco, and Mikael Granlund’s Rafa.
This year, meet the new dogs of the Sharks, and hear their stories!
Besides Smith, Celebrini, Vlasic, and Goodrow’s dogs, get to know Yaroslav Askarov’s Bugs, Cody Ceci’s Zeus and Hugo, Carl Grundstrom’s Otto, Nikolai Kovalenko’s Teddy, and Alex Wennberg’s Lexie.
Yaroslav Askarov: Bugs
Bugs is a three-year-old King Charles Spaniel.
Why Bugs?
My parents had a dog before, and it’s the same name.
Bugs’s personality:
He loves people. He loves everyone. If you’re gonna tell him something like, “Hey, come here buddy,” he’s gonna think you’re his owner.
Where is Bugs now?
He’s still in Russia now with my wife’s parents.
Cody Ceci: Zeus & Hugo
11-year-old Zeus and 10-year-old Hugo are French Bulldogs.
Why Zeus and Hugo?
No reason, really. I just like the names.
Macklin Celebrini: Cali
Cali is a four-year-old Golden Retriever.
Why Cali?
My sister named her when we moved to California.
Barclay Goodrow: Harlee & Norman
Harlee and Norman are mixes.
Why Harlee and Norman?
I just like the names.
Goodrow told the NHLPA in 2022:
If it was up to my wife, we’d probably have a lot more dogs…We’ve fallen in love with rescue dogs, and we have two of our own. We started out with fostering and that grew into adopting. Now that we have two, I think we’re set. You see a lot of rescue dogs on social media who need to find homes, and you hope that people see that, and they consider adopting them. It’s been great for us. They don’t know how you played, whether you won or lost, they are just happy to see you, and that’s a great feeling. We’ll try to find parks in the area, so there are lot of outdoorsy things to do, where we can take the dogs and just get out and relax. We’re pretty low-key people, but we do like the outdoors.
I guess Harlee and Norman have to keep working on their game https://t.co/wngXg5KRBh pic.twitter.com/HXXD8WedAr
— Barclay Goodrow (@bgoodrow23) August 26, 2022
Carl Grundstrom: Otto
Otto is a one-year-old Dachshund.
Why Otto?
His name was actually that when we got him, so we just kept it.
Nikolai Kovalenko: Teddy
Ted is a three-year-old Maltipoo.
Why Teddy?
He looks like a teddy [bear]. You know the movie [“Ted”]?
Where’s Ted?
He stays with us right now.
I don’t want to be without my dog.
(jokes) My wife can stay in Russia, but not my dog.
I have a lot of pictures in my phone, [he’s] so funny.
Will Smith: Rigney
Rigney is a four-year-old Cavachon.
Why Rigney?
Family history in Chicago with the White Sox.
(San Jose Hockey Now note: Smith’s grandmother’s father is pitcher John Rigney, who married Dorothy Comiskey, granddaughter of White Sox founder Charles Comiskey)
Marc-Edouard Vlasic: Piper
Piper is a nine-month-old Bernedoodle.
Why Piper?
[My girlfriend Frédérique Guay and I] were looking for a girl’s name. A lot of names end in Y, which are cute. We were thinking outside the box, and there’s a champagne called Piper-Heidsieck.
On rescuing Piper:
We got her at three months — got her June 11. Pixies and Paws Rescue — I follow them on Instagram — based out of New York.
We had to drive from Quebec City all the way to New York to pick her up and drive back.
Montreal to New York was six hours. We drove down, stayed overnight, next day, picked her up, and drove back. It was pretty cold, drove her back home. Small — well, not small —but she’s 60 pounds now, at nine months. When we got her, she was like 20 pounds at three months.
On Piper’s personality:
This one just fell in our lap, and she’s the sweetest, super nice. Loves dogs, loves humans, good with kids. Very, very smart. We got really lucky. It was fun, I haven’t had a puppy in a very long time. I had one maybe 15 or 16 years ago at that puppy stage. It’s pretty cool, it’s a lot of work, though—obviously, probably like having a kid. She’s a lot of fun, she’s very, very sweet. She’s energetic, she loves to walk, she loves to run. We’ll bring her to Tahoe for Christmas, so hopefully she gets to see some snow.
Alex Wennberg: Lexie
Lexie is a six-year-old Dachshund
Why Lexie?
I don’t know. It was supposed to be Lemon, but it didn’t fit her, so we switched it up a little bit. Supposed to call her Lemon. It was supposed to be a blonde Dachshund, but it was like more of a brownish, so we had to switch names because Lemon didn’t fit her.
Where did you get Lexie?
We always wanted a dog. We were back in Sweden one summer, we looked it up. I don’t know why, we’d never really seen a Long-haired Dachshund, so we looked it up, and found one that was there. No bigger story than that. We’re gonna get a few more, but maybe when we move back to Sweden.
Special thanks to San Jose Sharks PR and Maddie Dutra for their help with this story!
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