Here’s an excerpt from the Globesports.com article by Allan Maki and Eric Duhatschek who interviewed the incredibly lucky David Carle:
When David Carle spoke to his older brother about the death of 19-year-old Russian hockey star Alexei Cherepanov, the first words were chilling.
“He told me, ‘That could have been you,'” Carle said softly. “Yeah, it could have been me.”
Five months ago, Carle, the Alaska-born, younger brother of NHL defenceman Matt Carle, was on top of the world. He was 18 and a coveted NHL draft pick some thought could go as high as the second round.
And then, while undergoing tests for the NHL Scouting Combine, Carle’s dreams of a hockey career ended dramatically. Doctors found an irregularity with his heart.
He went to the Mayo Clinic, underwent an electrocardiogram (EKG) and an echocardiogram and was informed he was harbouring a silent killer: hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart muscle, the same condition that claimed 19-year-old Windsor Spitfires forward Mickey Renaud in February.
For Carle, being told he could no longer play hockey was a small price to pay for living. But hearing of Cherepanov’s death Monday because of an undetected heart condition proved to be a painful exercise for someone who assumed there wasn’t anything wrong with him, until he learned otherwise.
“The whole thing with Cherepanov and Renaud, if this doesn’t wake people up I don’t know what will,” said Carle, a freshman at the University of Denver, where he had planned to play hockey this season.