2018 has just started but someone has already claimed the 'Sportsmanlike Play of the Year.'
Early this past Sunday, Milwaukee Admirals forward Pierre-Cedric Labrie ended 2017 with a wild adventure that featured a snowstorm, calling upon the help of a kind stranger and the birth of his baby. Speaking with the Journal Sentinel, Labrie explained how he received a text from his wife, Jana Pieuze-Roy (daughter of NHL legend Patrick Roy) late in the evening on December 30th, hinting that their baby may be on the way, messaging "yeah, I'm having cramps."
Labrie's response? "Tell me right now. I'll stop the bus and get a ride from here." Yes, unfortunately for Labrie, when he received the message from his wife, he was half way to Grand Rapids on a bus with his teammates, traveling from Chicago where they had played that evening. Believing that she would be fine, Pieuze-Roy told Labie that she believed everything was alright and that he should stay with the team.
The Admirals arrived on time in Grand Rapids after their four and a half hour bus ride. But that was the only thing that went according to plan for Labrie. A few hours after going to sleep, Labrie's phone rang.
“I went to bed around midnight, and at 2 a.m. the phone rings,” Labrie said after practice Thursday at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.
“Water broke.”
The first flight out of Grand Rapids to anywhere close would have got Labrie to Chicago at 6:30 in the morning, and he’d still have had a 90-minute drive to Milwaukee.
“Her mom, for two kids, (labor was) less than six hours,” Labrie said. “I knew I had really a small gap.” (Journal Sentinel)
To make matters worse, Grand Rapids was experiencing a snowstorm at the time, so no taxi driver wanted to drive him all the way to Milwaukee and due to New Year's Eve being mere hours away, all the local chauffeurs in the area were booked up. This put Labrie in quite a bit of a jam. That's when Labrie turned to his teammate, Mark Zengerle, who had played in Grand Rapids at one point in his career, for advice.
Zengerle's suggestion? Call up Tom McCollum, Grand Rapids Griffin player, and ask to borrow his car.
The Griffins were headed back from a night game in Cleveland when Zengerle’s text message popped up on backup goaltender Tom McCollum’s phone. McCollum was watching a movie. He can’t sleep on the bus.
“It was kind of funny the way he said it,” McCollum said in a telephone interview Thursday. “He was like, ‘Hey, I’ve got a question; it’s totally cool if you say no,’ and just kind of explained the situation of what happened.”
Although the team wouldn’t be back to Grand Rapids for another 90 minutes, McCollum lives virtually across the street from the Admirals’ hotel. His girlfriend was at home. McCollum wasn’t going to need his Ford F-150 for a couple of days anyway, and the Griffins were headed to Milwaukee two days later. (Journal Sentinel)
Despite having never met Labrie, McCollum agreed to loan him his truck, all because he'd played against him before and could see that he was "an honest hockey player." Thanks to McCollum's kindness, Labrie made it to the hospital in Milwaukee at 6:15 am, 39 minutes before Pieuze-Roy gave birth to their son Lionel at 6:54 am.
Now that's what you call sportsmanship!
