'Wrong' Twin Makes $50K Hockey Shot

Dad comes clean after sons switch places
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 16, 2011 3:04 AM CDT
Updated Aug 16, 2011 3:24 AM CDT

Minnesota dad Pat Smith has decided that teaching his boys about honesty is worth more than $50,000. Smith took his twin 11-year-old sons, Nate and Nick, to a charity fundraiser hockey game last week, where Nate amazed the crowd by firing a 3-inch puck through a 3.5-inch hole from 89 feet away. Problem was, his dad had put Nick's name on all three raffle tickets he bought for a chance to take the $50,000 shot.

Nate had declined to have his name on the tickets because he had only recently had a cast removed from his arm, but he took the shot because his brother had gone outside at half-time, telling Nate to take the shot if his name was called. Their dad signed the forms afterward, but came clean about the switch the next day. "I just felt I had to do the right thing," he tells ABC News. "I just think that honesty is more important than any prize or money you could get." The insurance carrier for the event hasn't said whether it will pay the prize, which the boys say they want to use for college tuition and for making a donation to their local hockey association. (More hockey stories.)

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