Scott Darling, Chicago-native and current NHL goalie for the Chicago Blackhawks, has a soft spot for “people battling stuff that other people don’t understand;” so much so that he recently met a homeless man in Arizona and paid for him to live in a hotel for a month while he gets back on his feet.
Darling met the man while on the road with the Blackhawks last week playing against the Arizona Coyotes. Though there is no further information on who the man was or how they met, Darling told the Chicago Tribune,
“I just started talking to him, was interested in his life, seemed like a good guy and just needed a helping hand.”
Though Darling only told his fiancee about the encounter and what he was doing for this man, it gained popularity when a fellow hockey player, Kane Van Gate, from an amateur league happened to get into the same car from Uber that Darling had taken with the homeless man just days before. Below is where he recalls what happened in that car via Twitter:
Scott Darling’s soft spot for people in tough situations stems from his alcoholism, which got him kicked off his college hockey team at the University of Maine before he was able to recover. Luckily, he sought help for his addiction and made his way back into hockey and into the NHL, where he plays in the same city he’s from: Chicago. He is the first Chicago-native to win a Stanley Cup with the Blackhawks, which they won just last year.
As for the reason he decided to help the man out after he approached Darling to ask for money, he said,
“He seemed like a really nice person. I’m in the position to help somebody like that. I’m happy to do it.”
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