Prince Harry and Meghan Markle made a surprise appearance at a Vancouver Canucks game — and Harry even stepped out on the ice.
Harry, 39, and Meghan, 42, watched the Canucks face off against the San Jose Sharks at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, Canada, on Monday, November 20. At the beginning of the game, the Duke of Sussex made the ceremonial first puck drop before taking his seat with his wife.
“I actually had to tell him [to drop the puck] because he kept holding [it] and smiling,” Sharks captain Tomáš Hertl told reporters after the game. “I said, ‘It’s time to drop it.’ It was a cool moment, for sure, I will remember that one.”
Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet, meanwhile, said that he exchanged a quick greeting with Harry off the ice. “I gave him a fist bump,” Tocchet, 59, told reporters. “I don’t know if you’re allowed to do that. I did it, he did it. He kind of looked at me, but he did it.”
More than two decades earlier, Harry’s late grandmother Queen Elizabeth II performed the same duty at a Canucks game in 2002 while touring Canada for her Golden Jubilee. The late monarch, who died at age 96 in September 2022, also watched the Canucks play the Sharks.
Harry and Meghan are in Canada in honor of the Invictus Games, which Harry founded in 2014 for wounded, injured and sick service personnel and veterans. The next edition of the tournament will take place in 2025 in Vancouver and Whistler and will be the first Invictus Games to include winter adaptive sports, including alpine skiing and wheelchair curling.
Earlier this month, an insider exclusively told Us Weekly that the Sussexes are feeling “more refreshed than ever” after a bumpy year. “They got their bearings back and are focused and recharged and ready to get back out there again,” the source said, adding that “laying low really paid off” for the couple.
The duo — who share son Archie, 4, and daughter Lilibet, 2 — have been attempting to make a name for themselves in the entertainment world since stepping down as senior working royals in 2020. Earlier this year, however, the pair’s company Archewell Audio confirmed that Meghan’s “Archetypes” podcast wouldn’t return for a second season at Spotify after the Sussexes “mutually” agreed to part ways with the platform.
In October, an episode of Family Guy mocked the pair’s business deals, which Harry and Meghan didn’t think was very “nice,” per the insider. “But they’re learning to lighten up a bit,” the source added.
