A Broken Dream Realized

On Friday, June 20th, all of the big shots in the NHL had gathered in Ottawa along with a lot of young, hopeful hockey players and their families. Each of the seventeen and eighteen year olds sitting in the Ottawa Senators' home arena awaited the glorious moment when their names would be called and they would officially be drafted into the NHL.

But there was one young man who was slated to be picked in the second round of the draft that had his dreams crushed the day before. David Carle, the younger brother of San Jose Shark's Matt Carle, was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart which can cause immediate cardiac arrest if he were to do any physical activity that would be too strenuous on the body (like hockey). Upon learning of his condition on Thursday and that his dreams of playing professional hockey were over, he withdrew his name from the NHL Entry Draft.

The positive side of this was that they were able to diagnose the condition early on, therefore his life would not be put in jeopardy.

Carle also had a full scholarship to play hockey from the University of Denver to begin in the fall of 2008. Due to the circumstances, the university decided to go ahead and honor the scholarship, even though he will not be able to play hockey for the college.

"Not only are we morally and ethically obliged (to fulfill the scholarship), but we have established, and we try to establish, strong relationships with our student-athletes,'' Gwozdecky told the paper. "And we have had that relationship with the Carles for a long time because of Matt."

But that wasn't the only positive side of the news for Carle this weekend.