On January 14, during an AHL game in Rochester between the hometown Americans and the Hamilton Bulldogs, U.S. Airman and Rochester native Jerry Cappon appeared on the Jumbotron to deliver a message to his parents.
"Just saying hey to my family 'cause I know they're at the game tonight," said Cappon, in a video that played during a TV timeout about 10 minutes into the first period. Of course, Cappon strategically opted against mentioning that he was also at the game that night, which led to this touching moment immediately following the video, when he surprised his family in the stands:
Well. That's just super touching.
Here's the background, from Jerry's sister Rebecca, courtesy Welcome Home Blog:
My brother is stationed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. He was scheduled to come home for leave on January 14, 2012 but our parents believed he was coming home January 18, 2012. He decided he wanted to surprise both of them, so the plan went into action. In our city, the Rochester Amerks are the hockey team to watch and Jerry followed them through Twitter to keep up on the games. He decided to e-mail them to see if they could help us out, as there was a game the night he was coming home. They were more then helpful. Jerry created a video and thats what my parents thought was happening that night.
There's a Ramstein Air Base in Germany? It's a death metal air base, I'm assuming?
Follow Harrison Mooney on Twitter at @HarrisonMooney