It was worth the wait though!<\/p>\n
Get to know Tyler Toffoli\u2019s new dog, Stella! Rookie Sam Dickinson introduces us to Arnold Palmer. Adam Gaudette shows us Stella and Zeus, John Klingberg talks Ebba, we dig up an old pic of Zack Ostapchuk with Stewie, and Alex Nedeljkovic parades Zeke and Brady.<\/p>\n
Finally, Dmitry Orlov gets in on the fun, with his cat Joy!<\/p>\n
Learn how the San Jose Sharks players got their pets and how they came up with their names.<\/p>\n
Make sure you support animal rescues like San Jose Animal Care Center<\/a>, Silicon Valley Pet Project<\/a>, and Pets in Need<\/a>. San Jose Animal Care Center is close to Sharks Ice, Silicon Valley Pet Project serves dogs with special medical or behavioral needs, and Palo Alto\u2019s Pets in Need just celebrated its 60th anniversary.<\/p>\n Also, support Joybound<\/a>, where I rescued Mushu<\/a> (or Mushu rescued me) five years ago.<\/p>\n Adam Gaudette: Stella & Zeus<\/p>\n \u201cWe have two of them. They\u2019re back home, it\u2019s just a lot to take them out here with both kids, and our in-laws live two minutes away from our house, so they\u2019re basically home all the time. <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re Malkies\u2014Maltese-Yorkies\u2014they\u2019re mutts. Small dogs, one\u2019s, like, 20 pounds, one\u2019s, like, 14 or something. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had them for 7 and 8 years, or 8 or 9, something like that. We\u2019ve had them for a while. We\u2019d been married for five years in June. <\/p>\n \u201cMy wife had Stella, she got her a year before we met, and then three months into dating, we bought Zeus\u2014he was like the runt of the litter, $200, and he\u2019s special. <\/p>\n \u201cWe got Zeus in Brockton, Massachusetts\u2026It\u2019s close to where I grew up. I was really into Greek mythology at that point, so I was like \u2018We gotta name him Zeus,\u2019 and my wife was like, \u2018Alright, fine.\u2019 <\/p>\n \u201cStella was named after Stella Artois. Her dad\u2019s a bar owner, she named Stella after the beer.\u201d<\/p>\n Zeus<\/p>\n Stella<\/p>\n John Klingberg: Ebba<\/p>\n \u201cMy dog is 9 years old, she\u2019s a Chocolate Lab named Ebba. It\u2019s a Swedish name and something that me and my wife thought was cute. If we didn\u2019t name our dog that, we probably would have named our daughter that. I think it\u2019s a pretty common Swedish name, and it was just a name that we liked. <\/p>\n \u201cWe got her when we were in Dallas, so she\u2019s American. She was born in Oklahoma, but they drove her to Dallas in Texas when she was eight weeks old. She\u2019s a full-breed Chocolate Lab. She\u2019s 9 years old, but she\u2019s very healthy and has a lot of energy. It\u2019s great, she\u2019s such a great family dog, she\u2019s so nice. <\/p>\n \u201cWe have two daughters running around back home, almost 5 and 3 years old. They\u2019re pulling on her tail and throwing toys and stuff at her. She loves it, she plays with them too, barks at them and stuff like that\u2014in a good way. She\u2019s been a great addition to our family.\u201d<\/p>\n Alex Nedeljkovic: Zeke & Brady<\/p>\n \u201cWe got a Black Lab named Zeke, he\u2019s 6 years old, and a Golden Retriever named Brady, he\u2019s 3. <\/p>\n \u201cI liked the name Ezekiel a lot at first, I thought it was different and cool, and then I just shortened it up to Zeke. <\/p>\n \u201cBrady came from another football name. We thought Zeke like Zeke Elliot and then Brady like Tom Brady. We liked Brady, and then it worked out being with TB12. <\/p>\n \u201cWe got Zeke when I played in Charlotte. There\u2019s a nonprofit organization called Project2Heal, they breed Labs to become service dogs for disabled veterans. I got really close with a former owner and he would bring litters to the rink and throw them on the ice and get them in the locker room, so I got close with him. He ran everything out of their basement at the house. I went there a bunch of times and saw dogs. <\/p>\n \u201cMy wife actually held a two-minute old newborn pup in her hands the one day we were fortunate enough to be there when one of the dogs was giving birth. We got to do a whole bunch of stuff with them. <\/p>\n \u201cGrowing up, my grandma had a Yellow Lab, so I love dogs and always wanted one. He was very kind enough to allow us to adopt Zeke, and it\u2019s been awesome. <\/p>\n \u201cBrady was just looking at another one to try to give Zeke a little brother to mess around with and stuff, and I think she had wanted a Golden, so we just looked around and found a good breeder and brought Brady home. <\/p>\n \u201cI actually left three days before we were supposed to get him, I went to Worlds that year, and I let her bring home a newborn pup. It worked out, though\u2014I got home, and he was potty-trained.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Zach Ostapchuk: Stewie<\/p>\n \u201cMy dog\u2019s name is Stewie, he\u2019s a little Morkie\u2014it\u2019s a Maltese-Yorkie. He was supposed to be, like, 10 pounds, but he\u2019s more like 30. He lives with my mom.<\/p>\n \u201cI was a big Family Guy fan at the time. At the time, I was watching a lot of Family Guy. Stewie was my favourite character, so I named him Stewie. We got him in Red Deer, so we drove like an hour and a half to get him. <\/p>\n \u201cMy old dog had actually just passed away\u2014this was before we got Stewie\u2014me and that dog never really got along. My mom said we\u2019re not getting another dog for a while, but she lasted about a week and we went and got one. He\u2019s got to be 7 or 8 now.\u201d<\/p>\n Kiefer Sherwood<\/p>\n We\u2019ll chat with Sherwood about his dog after the Olympic break!<\/p>\n Tyler Toffoli: Stella<\/p>\n \u201cHer name\u2019s Stella. We got her in the summer, Cat found her somewhere. We got her, and it\u2019s been a lot of fun. She\u2019s a Yorkie. Like I said, she\u2019s been a lot of fun, and has a lot of energy. It\u2019s always nice to come home\u2014when she\u2019s all excited, it makes you feel a lot better, regardless of what\u2019s going on that day.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam Dickinson: Arnold Palmer<\/p>\n \u201cHe goes by Arnie or Mr. P as well. My dad didn\u2019t want a dog, and the agreement was we could get a dog if he got to name it. It\u2019s the same thing as our cats, so he\u2019s gotten to name every animal in the house. They\u2019re named after two golf courses that he likes. Tiny English Goldendoodle, he\u2019s like 20 pounds, maybe? I think he\u2019s turning 10 soon, he\u2019s getting up there. We\u2019ve had him for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n (Sam says there are no pictures of Mr. P around\u2026sad face emoji)<\/p>\n Dmitry Orlov: Joy<\/p>\n \u201cHis name is Joy. It\u2019s just his name, he was born with this name, and we never changed it\u2014it\u2019s actually a perfect name for him. He always brings joy into our life, and he\u2019s always fun. <\/p>\n \u201cWe got him back home in Russia and he flew to us after 6 months, and since then, he\u2019s always with us. It was actually kind of a secret present for our family from my wife. She got it as a secret. <\/p>\n \u201cWe were thinking about getting a dog at the time, but we didn\u2019t like what we saw, and then we started thinking about cats, and my wife kind of just got one. One morning I wake up, she\u2019s not sleeping, I wonder what\u2019s going on, and I go into the other room and she\u2019s playing with the cat. He was so small, it was pretty cool. He was a little scared and everything, but he\u2019s gotten older already. He\u2019s 11 years old right now.\u201d<\/p>\n Special thanks to San Jose Sharks PR and Maddie Dutra for their help with this story!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Happy Valentine\u2019s Day! Don\u2019t forget your (furry) loved ones today. Meet the dogs of the San Jose Sharks!…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1317,6514,24064,50171,6518,2681,218187,831,6521,36008,201570,385,6529,835,99,72220,218188,6535,218189,218190,23831],"class_list":{"0":"post-469679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-adam-gaudette","9":"tag-alex-nedeljkovic","10":"tag-arnold-palmer","11":"tag-brady","12":"tag-dmitry-orlov","13":"tag-dogs","14":"tag-ebba","15":"tag-featured","16":"tag-john-klingberg","17":"tag-joy","18":"tag-kiefer-sherwood","19":"tag-nhl","20":"tag-sam-dickinson","21":"tag-san-jose-sharks","22":"tag-sports","23":"tag-stella","24":"tag-stewie","25":"tag-tyler-toffoli","26":"tag-zach-ostapchuk","27":"tag-zeke","28":"tag-zeus"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Gaudette-Zeus-scaled.jpg\")
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