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Medical staff and families volunteer at St. Vincent de Paul

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Girl Scout Troop 32817 donates to Ronald McDonald House

<p>It&#8217;s easy for a person to get lost in the crowd in a big city. But it&#8217;s even easier for a pro hockey player to be overlooked if he happens to hail from the Toronto area - a place the turns out perhaps more players than any other city.</p><p>Franky Palazzese hasn&#8217;t yet made the NHL, but he&#8217;s one of a countless number of prop players to hail from the Greater Toronto Area. Like any kid from the GTA, Palazzese grew up watching the Leafs and said the team&#8217;s success essentially dictates the mood in the city.</p><p>While Palazzese admits he&#8217;s a &#8220;big city&#8221; type of guy, he also enjoyed another facet of Toronto life: the outdoors. The opportunity to get away from it all could be found right in downtown Toronto, and Palazzese took advantage of the opportunity often.</p><p><strong>Player:</strong> Franky Palazzese</p><p><strong>Hometown:</strong> Mississauga, Ontario</p><p><strong>Type:</strong> Urban</p><p><strong>Population: </strong>713,443</p><p><strong>Distance from Wilkes-Barre: </strong> 251 miles</p><p><strong>How big is hockey in Mississauga? </strong>&#8220;They have the Mississauga Steelheads (OHL), which used to be Mississauga Majors. They&#8217;ve been there a long time. You&#8217;re in the GTA so there&#8217;s so much to do they don&#8217;t draw many fans. There are just so many teams.&#8221;</p><p><strong>How big is hockey in Toronto?</strong> &#8220;Everyone wants to play hockey. I played other sports - soccer, but hockey was, for me, the sport I loved. All the kids in the GTA want to play hockey. It&#8217;s a big hockey market and a lot of guys in the NHL go through Toronto.&#8221;</p><p><strong>Does the city take a lot of pride in the Leafs?</strong> &#8220;They mean the most to the city. Not taking anything from other cities like Pittsburgh and Montreal. The Leafs haven&#8217;t been the greatest lately, but they still sell out every night. The waiting list for season tickets is apparently 50, 60 years. The people of Toronto love the team. If they can make a playoff run the city will be wild. We saw that with the Raptors (NBA). They made the a run and lost in Game 7 to Brooklyn. The city rallied around it. They were selling tickets just to stand outside the arena and watch the game on the big screen.&#8221;</p><p><strong>With so many NHLers from the Toronto area, does anyone even notice when hometown players turn pro?</strong> &#8220;There are so many guys, elite players in the NHL, that are from the Toronto area that you don&#8217;t hear about other guys that are also really good. No one hears of them and they don&#8217;t get any media coverage because it&#8217;s such a big market.&#8221;</p><p><strong>What did you do for fun in the GTA?</strong> &#8220;There&#8217;s a lot to do. I hung out with buddies, I like to golf, like the outdoors. In the Toronto area there&#8217;s so much to do, so many people around that you can never get bored. There&#8217;s always something to do.&#8221;</p><p><strong>Outdoors? In Toronto?</strong> &#8220;My dad has a boat docked in downtown Toronto. We get out on the lake a lot. By the Air Canada Centre, Lake Ontario is right there. I spend a lot of time on the boat.&#8221;</p><p><strong>Would you like to move back to Mississauga one day?</strong> &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t see myself living anywhere else. I was born there, grew up there. I&#8217;m a big city kind of guy, although I do like going to a smaller town during the season, like Wheeling and Wilkes-Barre. I like the small town feel during the season, but I&#8217;ll always live in Toronto.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Palazzese </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_Palazzese.jpg</photo0><caption0>Palazzese </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Tom Venesky</p><p>tvenesky@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Tom Venesky at 570-991-6395 or on Twitter @TLTomVenesky</p></shirttailMeta></div>

My Hometown: Franky Palazzese likes big city life in Toronto