{"id":400243,"date":"2026-01-10T09:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T09:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/400243\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T09:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T09:32:09","slug":"maple-leafs-auston-matthews-just-surprised-locals-at-toronto-outdoor-rink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/400243\/","title":{"rendered":"Maple Leafs&#8217; Auston Matthews just surprised locals at Toronto outdoor rink"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are over 50 outdoor rinks in Toronto. What are the odds that you&#8217;ll see a Maple Leafs player skating at one near you?<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday night, Auston Matthews and the Toronto Maple Leafs were in Philadelphia, gutting out a 2-1 overtime win on the road. The next day, the Maple Leafs superstar was back in Toronto, where he was spotted going for a quick skate at one of the city&#8217;s outdoor rinks.<\/p>\n<p>A local Facebook user <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/1462946587258722\/posts\/4544725745747442\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">posted a picture<\/a> of her son posing next to\u00a0Matthews outside of Greenwood Rink.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"toronto maple leafs auston matthews\" id=\"content-image-124434\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767995621-20260109-auston-matthews-toronto-rink.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Elaine C Gauthier\/Facebook<\/p>\n<p>Some Facebook commenters asked why Matthews was at the rink, but Gauthier explained that the 28-year-old star was &#8220;just skating.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She also added that her son said the Leafs&#8217; captain\u00a0was &#8220;really nice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Greenwood Rink opened up back in 2013, becoming the city&#8217;s first covered outdoor rink. The adjacent Greenwood Park\u00a0also features\u00a0a popular 215-metre-long outdoor skating path.<\/p>\n<p>But for locals who frequent the area, they probably don&#8217;t expect to run into an NHL superstar while out for a skate.<\/p>\n<p>Matthews certainly had plenty of local options for an outdoor skate in Toronto, especially\u00a0considering that his teammate, John Tavares, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/shorts\/_Gk3cYJkxow?feature=share\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">has a private outdoor rink in his backyard<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Leafs&#8217; all-time leading goal scorer isn&#8217;t the only Toronto player who&#8217;s recently been spotted at a local rink. During the\u00a0Christmas break in 2024, William Nylander&#8217;s sister posted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DEBeYhxtMYe\/?img_index=5\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">photos of their family<\/a> skating at an unnamed rink in the city.<\/p>\n<p>Matthews and the Leafs are back in action on Saturday night at Scotiabank Centre as they take on the floundering Vancouver Canucks.<\/p>\n<p>The Leafs captain will look to stay hot with six goals and eight points in his last five games.<\/p>\n<p>                Lead photo by <\/p>\n<p>James Guillory\/Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>            <script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are over 50 outdoor rinks in Toronto. What are the odds that you&#8217;ll see a Maple Leafs&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[22079,49,48,8461,33821,22078,448,41541,82,3302],"class_list":["post-400243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-auston","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-leafs","tag-maple","tag-matthews","tag-nhl","tag-skate","tag-sports","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}