Miranda Anton got one of the final spots along the glass for warm-up ahead of the Vancouver Canucks game against the Utah Hockey Club on March 16. She held a grey stuffed animal in one hand, safely wrapped in plastic to protect it from the elements, and her phone in the other after placing her sign up against the glass in the Canucks’ end of the rink.
“Hey Garland,” read the sign. “I crocheted a shark for you.”
All Miranda wanted to do was make something special for her favourite player, Conor Garland. It wasn’t even her first time trying to get the handmade shark to Garland, so all she was hoping was that Garland would see the sign and she could get her gift into Garland’s hands; she didn’t expect anyone else to even notice.
Instead, the gift got plenty of attention.
"I got the shark to him and that's all that really mattered"
The Canucks posted a video of Miranda tossing the shark over the glass to Garland on their social media platforms. On TikTok, the video currently has over 930,000 views and nearly 21,000 likes.
@canucks A Jaw-some gift for Garland! 🦈 #Canucks #Garland #Shark ♬ SHARK - MAXXI MUSIC
Garland skated back around to Miranda and expressed his thanks with a puck, which was more than she had even expected.
“I was over the moon about the puck,” said Miranda. “I got the shark to him and that’s all that really mattered. I didn’t want anything back. I just wanted to show appreciation for my favourite Canuck.”
The appreciation was felt both ways, as the Canucks then reached out to Miranda about giving a gift back.
“The next day I had a message in my Instagram on my business account from the Canucks For Kids Fund,” said Miranda. “They reached out and said, ‘We saw the crocheted shark you gave Conor Garland and we want to gift you a signed jersey from him.’”
Miranda received the signed Garland jersey at the Canucks’ game against the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday afternoon, a game where the Canucks set a new record for the fastest five goals in franchise history.
Gift exchange completed. 🎁
— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) April 5, 2025
After Miranda crocheted a shark for Conor Garland, he made sure she received a signed jersey as a gift in return! https://t.co/UkrPzzMDIY pic.twitter.com/UxCEs5fi2P
It made for an extremely memorable experience for Miranda, though she felt the gift exchange was a little bit unbalanced. So, she showed up with another crocheted shark for Garland, a tiger shark to go with the great white.
“I figured one crocheted shark for a jersey is not a fair trade,” said Miranda. “Especially with all the stuff that’s happened, so I thought, ‘I’m going to make him another one.’ They said that he took the first one home and he loved it, so I thought I would give him a different type of shark.”
"I don’t know if he’s going to give it to his son or keep it for himself"
The original idea to make a shark started when she saw the “Going Home” video the Canucks produced about Garland in the offseason where they visited his hometown of Scituate Harbor in Massachusetts. There are 22 different sharks in Garland's home in that video; now he’s got two more.
“He was talking in the video about how he liked the movie Jaws, so that was in the back of my head,” said Miranda. “Then he named his son after a character from the movie Jaws, and I was like, ‘Okay, yeah, that’s a real love for sharks and the movie Jaws.’”
Garland and his wife, Meghan, named their son Quint but not after Quinn “Quintin” Hughes, who is the baby’s godfather. Instead, he’s named after the character Quint in the movie Jaws played by actor Robert Shaw. Really, it was baby Quint who inspired Miranda to crochet a shark for Garland.
“I thought it would be kind of fun if I could try to gift him something because it’s his first kid,” said Miranda. “I was trying to figure out what to make because I have a crochet business, so I have a slew of patterns that I’ve gotten over the years. Then I remembered that he loves sharks.”
The pattern comes from a designer named Megan, who runs a crochet business called Poms & Posies that specializes in marine designs.
“She’s really passionate about the ocean,” said Miranda. “She gives fun facts all about the animals on the patterns and conservations tips and stuff like that. She has mermaids, sea horses, and a whole bunch of different kinds of sharks.
“I’ve been messaging her back and forth online — look what happened!”
The two sharks she gifted Garland are undeniably adorable and she made sure they would be safe for baby Quint.
“You could put safety eyes in them, but they don’t recommend them for kids under three, so I embroidered eyes on them, so they were fully safe for children,” she said.
“I don’t know if he’s going to give it to his son or keep it for himself,” she added with a laugh. “I feel like it could go either way.”
"He definitely helped me become a cool mom"
The first attempt to get the shark to Garland at a game in February fell through. As anyone who has followed Garland with the Canucks, he’s an intensely competitive person and his attention rarely wanders, even in warm-ups. It’s almost as if he’s a shark and there’s blood in the water — or the ice — and he can’t tear his attention away.
That intensity is part of what drew Miranda to Garland in the first place.
“I’ve been a fan of his since he joined the Canucks,” said Miranda. “Everybody jokes about how short he is — he even jokes about how short he is — but watching him play, it was insane. He was like a pit bull. It didn’t matter how big he was, he went right in there and was going full force.
“I was totally in awe. Yeah, this guy’s not terribly tall but it doesn’t stop him. He’s a fighter and he works hard regardless of what the score is. That’s what drew me to becoming a fan of his.”
Garland has also helped Miranda, whether at home in Aldergrove with her kids, or at the elementary school she works as a special education assistant.
“He definitely helped me become a cool mom,” said Miranda with a laugh. “The kids wanted the puck that he gave me but I’m definitely keeping that…I definitely have some flex now with the grade four and five boys at school, that’s for sure. So, I can thank him for that.”
The unexpected attention has also drawn more eyes to her business, Knot Your Granny’s Stitches, which sells crocheted items, patterns, and yarn.
“I feel weird about it because I didn’t do this to get publicity,” said Miranda. “I did it because I want to show appreciation to Conor Garland for being a great player.”
She joked that she might have to make more sharks for an upcoming craft fair. She then stopped and more seriously said, “Oh crap, I am going to have to make a lot more sharks.”
