{"id":661489,"date":"2026-05-10T08:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T08:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/661489\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T08:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T08:37:08","slug":"walkers-whirlwind-trip-brings-him-back-to-hurricanes-after-baby-daughters-arrival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/661489\/","title":{"rendered":"Walker\u2019s whirlwind trip brings him back to Hurricanes after baby daughter\u2019s arrival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Walker spent Friday night in Raleigh before flying back to Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon to rejoin the Hurricanes. The 31-year-old said he landed around 2 p.m. and met his teammates at their hotel before riding the bus with them to the arena.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI ate my pregame meal in the hospital cafeteria,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just crazy, but you just show up and the guys were amazing. Everybody &#8212; team services, the whole organization from the owner (Tom Dundon) down \u2013 really made it possible for me to be there and get back in time. Just happy to contribute.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Walker played his usual steady game alongside defense partner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/k-andre-miller-8480817\" title=\"K&#039;Andre Miller\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">K&#8217;Andre Miller<\/a>, logging 23:13 in ice time and getting two shots on goal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was weird,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was kind of one of the easiest and hardest games I maybe ever played, if that makes sense. You just kind of live in the moment running on no sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Walker\u2019s teammates were happy he made it back in time for the game, but happier that he\u2019ll have a new baby waiting for him when he gets home.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHockey is amazing, to get a win is amazing, but for him to welcome a baby into the world, there\u2019s so much more to life than hockey,\u201d Hurricanes defenseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/jaccob-slavin-8476958\" title=\"Jaccob Slavin\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jaccob Slavin<\/a>\u00a0said. \u201cSo, happy for him, happy for his family. He played amazing today \u2013 dad strength.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Walker spent Friday night in Raleigh before flying back to Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon to rejoin the Hurricanes.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-661489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}