Tim Thomas Makes a Jubilant Return Home

“I wanted to say thanks to the people who always believed in me, even when Wholesale Affliction Cotton Tops Crew Neck T Shirts T-SHIRTS-202010 for MEN|WOMEN|cheap|wholesale others didn’t,” Thomas said. “Thanks for sharing this day with me.” The best hockey player in the world may not be Sidney Crosby or Alex Ovechkin, or any other young, glamorous forward. It may be a 37-year-old goalie who did not even become an N.H.L. starter until six years ago, after years of obscurity in Europe and the minors, a quiet man who grew up in a family that sometimes struggled in this tidy small city and in nearby Flint, best known for its abandoned homes and factories. Thomas went home to Davison on Wednesday, taking with him the Cup and the other trophies he won in a record-breaking season with the Boston Bruins. About 2,500 people turned out at the Davison High School stadium, about half the population of the city, to salute the hometown boy who made good the hard way. “We were never poor poor, but we were never rich, either,” said Thomas’s father, Tim Sr., 57. “We always paid the bills.” The story of how Thomas’s father and his mother, Kathy, hocked their wedding rings to pay for one of Tim’s many trips to tournaments while he was growing up was told often last season. It was told as Thomas compiled an N.H.L.-record .938 save percentage on his way to becoming the oldest player in league history to be named the most valuable player of the playoffs. “It’s O.K., she has a nicer ring now,” Tim Sr. said about the long-ago sale, which netted 150. It was years before his son found out. “We never told him about it because we didn’t want him to feel bad,” said Tim Sr., who was also paying for his other son’s hockey-playing days. “It was one of those things you’re forced to do when the economy is tough.” Michael Moore, the documentary filmmaker and graduate of Davison High, noted that the Flint area suffered from unemployment as high as 29 percent when General Motors began closing factories two decades ago. “I think there’s a work ethic Wholesale Cheap Breguet Watches BWATCHES-1922 Online,MEN|WOMEN|c2010 for MEN|WOMEN|cheap|wholesale where people are very used to a hardscrabble existence,” Moore said Wednesday. “And they know that no one is coming to rescue us. The cavalry is not on the way to pull us out of the position we’re in. So we have to sort of do that ourselves.” Tim Sr. was a car salesman, but his career began “at the beginning of the end of the economy in the Flint area,” as he put it, when the American auto industry was starting its long decline. Growing up, Tim and his younger brother, Jake, lived in Flint, Detroit and Davison as their father took jobs at various dealerships. By the time Tim got to middle school in Davison, the family lived in a little house on Cypress Street. For a couple of years when Tim Sr. didn’t have a job, they had a fruit stand in a nearby parking lot and even sold fruit door to door. One time Ken Morrow, a Davison High graduate who won the Olympic gold medal in 1980 and four straight Stanley Cups with the Islanders, happened by the stand. “I tried to sell apples to him, but I didn’t try very hard — I just wanted to get his autograph,” Thomas said. “I was embarrassed.” Times may have been tough for the Thomases, Juicy Necklace JUICY9174,MEN|WOMEN|cheap|wholesale|discount|buy|2 010 for MEN|WOMEN|cheap|wholesale but there was always hockey and family. Barely old enough to walk, Thomas played constantly with a soft stick and soft ball. Soon his father put him in pads, “and they nearly tore up the apartment,” said an uncle, Bill Thomas. Not long after, he graduated to more competitive games with his father and uncles. “We always played garage hockey,” Tim Sr. said. “He couldn’t stand to have me score on him. I’d put one in on him to the upper corner and say, ‘He shoots, he scores!’ And the little guy would say, ‘You’re offside!’ ” When Thomas was old enough to skate, he was already showing preternatural talent.