The Carles

This morning I set out to write a post with the headline (are they called headlines on blogs?) "Big Brother" in which I was going to tell you all about the brothers of current Flyers. I even had a really long sentence where I acknowledge that the "headline" was more likely to conjure thoughts of the Orwellian nightmare depicted in the pages of the summer reading classic 1984 than a list of where the Flyers brothers played or play hockey. As I have a tendency to do I somehow started to discuss 1985, the critically abhorred sequel to 1984 in which Winston's re-education is actually undone by a Cindi Lauper song and he goes on to invent snap bracelets. And how if you don't count school related reading it actually outsold 1984. I was feeling sexy and about to rip my tear-aways off when I stumbled upon this article about Matt Carle's brother, and I was suddenly having less fun.

It turns out Carle's younger brother, who was projected to go in the 3rd round of this past June's draft, was diagnosed with a heart condition that means he cac never play competitive hockey again. As far as sob stories go this doesn't rank that high up there. But the kid's perspective on the whole thing is great. Too few of us are happy just to be alive. It's a precious thing and must be remembered. Especially in times like these, with wars raging, layoffs looming, and your roommate constantly moving his desk into your room claiming that if you're all going to pay the same amount of rent your rooms are all going to be the same size regardless of walls.

It's a good story that almost had a serendipitous ending. In an act of kindness Lightning owner and former WHL point machine Oren Koules (who knew?) drafter David Carle with one of the last picks of this years draft even though he knew Carle could never play. He then traded for his brother, Matt. Could the two have been connected? Who knows. But if you read this blog, our you've figured out how to read the name on the jersey in the picture above, you know how this story ends. Nice while it lasted....