Class
by unallocated on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 04:58pm
The Frog populace who cares about major junior hockey is a small but earnest collection of die-hards. This single story, out of many extraordinary stories from the 2008 NHL draft, merits further consideration. SportsDoc and Oiler were on top of it and you can read the postings here.
David Carle (the brother of an NHL player) is a student at Shattuck-St. Mary’s. His brother, not by any means anything less than a fine professional athlete, went so far as to say his sibling was a better player than him. Projected by many to be a first round draft pick last weekend, oh, but life intervened. David was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. You may remember that Reggie Lewis died of it. Several athletes have. Fortunately, Carle was properly diagnosed by doctors beforehand. And Carle made certain that every NHL franchise was informed that he’d not possibly be exploring an NHL career. He made the wrenching decision to tell teams he was out of the picture; withdrawing from the draft. Yet his dream was to be a player in the NHL. This is a decision that will gnaw at you forever.
Oren Koules gets it. And in one of the classiest moves in memory, uses the last Lighting draft pick on Carle. Koules will get criticized for it. He’ll be accused of not drafting a 7th round player that may have been of some use in the Tampa minor league system. And much gnashing of teeth. It’s not a publicity stunt. It’s the life-blood of the game. A brilliant gesture from someone who didn’t get there to someone who won’t. Yet found a way.
From the distant voice of a guy in Vancouver, a standing ovation. This is the very definition of class. And this is hockey. Tampa is in good hands.
Tampa drafts David Carle in the 7th round.