Carl Smith Personal Letter

Welcome to the Mike Hartman Show. Mike is a performance coach and former Stanley cup champion with the New York Rangers. Topics on this show are focused around stories, mindset and champions. Mike will also go into details about helping you with your pain points and struggles and finding motivational solutions on how to have the mindset of a champion. Now, here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Welcome to another episode. And this episode is, is very special to me, and it's a long story. I have a friend with me that we, we went, we go way back where we grew up in Oak Park. His name is Peter Smith. Peter, how are you?

Very good. Michael, how are you?

I'm, I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I, I, this, this really means a lot to me. And this is going to be our 100th episode and the story behind the story, as I said, I'm only going to do 100 of these to see where it's going. I'm going to be doing many, many more, but I wanted this one to be the 100th, to make it special. And then I'm going to be solo for a long time. So I think that I'm just going to share a little bit of a story and then I'm going to hand over the mic to you. And this takes me back to. This goes back quite a ways. We're talking 1992, 29 years ago. I received a call and I'm not sure if it was from one of your family members. It was about your brother. And, you know, I was told that your brother's in the hospital and it doesn't look good. And I knew your brother. We weren't like best friends or, but we were, we were friendly. We used to see each other, like at the Oak Park Ice arena. And I remember that year, and someone said, please come to the hospital because we don't know exactly how long Carl Smith is going to be with us. So immediately what I did was I went to the hospital, I grabbed a jersey and I, I can't remember if the jersey was one that they, that the team gave us for pictures. And it was our expansion team, Tampa Bay Lightning. And I ended up going to the hospital and I saw your brother and I saw him on the bed and it was, it was very hard. I have a tear in my eye right now. I'll never forget this day as long as I live.

And.

The story is that I gave him a jersey, which, I mean, he took it and he grabbed it and he grabbed my hand and he took a pen and he had a piece of paper, it was like a yellow piece of paper. And he wrote, thanks for the jersey. And it took him quite a while to do this. And I don't know, back then, it seemed like a long time. It could have been 8 minutes, 10 minutes, 12 minutes, I don't know. And he said, thanks for the jersey, but most of all, the long but not unforgotten friendship. And he grabbed my hand, and I'm ready to cry right now because.

I know it's hard. I know it's very hard.

I've said this story a lot. I haven't cried. But I told him. He said, mike, please keep this the rest of your life. And I said, you have my word, I'm going to keep it. And I showed my kids, and I walked out of the hospital feeling empty. Sick thought, wow. And I complained about a stupid game with a puck and a net, and it was a privilege to play a sport or a privilege just to live life every day to the fullest. And I remember I thought I was having a tough day, and your brother was on his last leg, and I told him, I'm going to keep this forever. I have the note here with me, and I show my kids, and I said, if you think you have a bad day. This was a young, positive, energetic, rambunctious. He had energy. He was such a really good person. And we may have even tussled a couple times, I can't remember. But when it came down to it, I saw him there, and it totally set me back. I think about him and I said, I'm never going to lose this. I've kept this in a briefcase that I had, and the briefcase got old, and I threw away the briefcase and I put this in one of my bags, and I'm going to turn the mic over to you in a second. But what happened was I said, I have to get in touch with you because I remember you in Detroit, a very competitive, young, rambunctious, like your brother person. You're an athlete as well. And I thought it was important that we make this work. And I don't even care. Like, I know you're on an iPad and the software isn't the greatest, and the sound might be okay, but there isn't enough words that. That's going to explain, you know, what. What you went through. And then we could just listen and the people could listen. And I'd love for you to share a little bit about. About your brother. And I want you to take over from here.

First of all, I. The story about the note that Carl wrote to you, I never heard that before and it's very touching and it's hard for me to talk at times and it's been 29 years. A lot of people will ask me about what happened and how it was and how you react and everyone reacts differently and it's people like you. And there were other, other friends from our neighborhood, they came out of the woodwork when he was in the hospital. Of course, myself and my other brothers, we believed he was going to beat it. How can a 26 year old, perfectly healthy human being get knocked down like that? And all our friends, including yourself, and you were on your way out of town and you were so kind to come by and to hear that Carl wrote you a note and you saved it, is really touching and it means a lot. And the jersey you brought, we have and we kept it. And when you reached out to me the other night, I pulled it out, my wife take a picture of it. It's still there and we always have it and it means a lot to us. And there were several other people, sports figures that came through. And it's. When someone gets sick, especially young, it's very touching. It's very hard. You know, they die before their time. You never want to hear that, especially when it's someone you know. It was, it was a life altering thing by far. And I reacted, you know, I was hurt, you know, I don't know who I was mad at. I don't know if I was really mad in a sense, but I was scrambled for a while. I honestly, I probably went over a year with. Just in a funk, not knowing where my life was headed and what direction I wanted to go into. You know, it's, you know, it's like, I don't know how to explain it, but it's like if you come home and somebody broke into your house and took things, there's nothing you could do and you're angry and you're not going to get it back. You know, you're not going to get it back. It's kind of the same thing. I couldn't stop the process. I couldn't do anything. There's nothing I could do, nothing my family could do and obviously nothing the doctors could do. And once he passed on, you know, the, the part of healing and going through life. Now here we are, 29 years later and I still feel, you know, very hard, it's very hard to talk about it sometimes. He not only was, you know, my brother, because I have Several brothers, but he was my closest. He was my best man. Not even a year earlier at my wedding. We lived together for a long time. We played hockey together mostly. You know, he didn't play the same levels as you or even me, which I wasn't your level, but he, he still, he enjoyed it. And that's the whole part of hockey. It was a lot of fun. He was like you and I. He was a rink rat and. And we had a lot of friends at the time when it happened, we were on a softball team. It was in the summertime and our league just folded. Nobody wanted to play. Nobody wanted to. You know, it was just wasn't fun. The fun was taken out. And that's. That's the hard things of life that we deal with. And I just. I'm fortunate that now I have a son named Carl, named after him, obviously. And he's a good kid. He is going through college right now. He's smart. I think he takes after myself. He takes. He's been raised well. We were raised well by my parents, and I think we passed it on to our kids and. And I think a lot of people in our shoes can say the same thing. You know, we know right from wrong. We were raised that way. Right. I know that, you know, your parents are great. They were very giving parents, but they also were hard on us. That's the era we grew up in that time. It was nice to. To have sports in our life, but there's also other things in life and you have to have friendship and, you know, to reach back with you, who I haven't heard in years from, is great. And I have friends now that I live in the West Coast. A lot of friends I only talk to on the phone. I don't go back to Detroit all that often, but I still connect with them. And I teach my son that too, is you need to have friends and you got to pick your friends. You know, some of them don't always blend with you, but you, most importantly, you have to stick with your family because your family will always be there for you. And friend can. Friends can be close as family, but your family will always be there, and that's huge. And with all my brothers and all the years we played hockey and now out in here in California, I have two brothers out in California and two in Detroit still. And people out here, they tell us how you guys are so close, and I look at it like, why is it so hard to grasp? Right? You know, and I know people out. Out here and in Detroit. Well, I don't talk to my brothers. I can't even think of that. I talk to all my brothers all the time. And that's part of life. And you have to move on. And like I said, it's been 29 years. It still hurts, but you can't change it.

Yeah, and I change it. You know, I have this piece of paper and I look at it and I pull it out and, you know, you just think back and it's amazing. The paper still looks in good shape. I'm going to post it. I know you're not in Facebook, but we have a lot of people. I'm going to post the jersey and the. And the letter that was written in my Facebook group. It's a Hartman Dot Academy group. So if you ever, anybody ever wants to go there, I'm going to. I'm going to post it there. And it's something that, you know, we need things that. That remind us of certain things. And your brother has never been forgotten. And it's strange. It's like, you know, you go through life and you lose a loved one, and then you see people kind of going their own way and you're wondering, you know, are people still thinking about a family member? My friend, my brother. And he. He in this thing. He's never been forgotten. It touches me every time. And life is built on relationships. And that's the first thing that I taught my kids. I said, listen, everything's about a relationship. And Peter, I haven't seen you in many, many years. I remember you actually skated with us in the pros and you did great. You were out there and competing and I mean, you were a good player, but it doesn't matter if you played house, league travel, aaa, NHL. We're all athletes and we all have this common bond that we could relate to each other. And, you know, just. It's funny, I look at you, you damn. And you look like people can't see because I can see you on here, but this is all audio. But you look like you're damn 28 years old. It's amazing.

I could fool some people sometimes.

Yeah. But if there's anything you want to say, anything that we can keep with us and any takeaways that. That we could have, because I'm going to keep this forever. I don't know if I could give you. If you want a copy, I sent you a picture. I don't.

I would love a copy. That would be great.

I want this forever. I don't know if I could if you want the original and I take a copy, I will do it. No, no, thank you. Thank you.

You keep that original.

Yeah. And.

It brought me to tears when you told me about it. And we have a vacation home, and I would love to get that frame and just put it up on a wall.

Well, you have my word, I'm going to get this done for you. So we'll get all your information. I hope we stay in touch. You live from my father. My father's in Alpine, and you're in San Diego, but you might be moving. But I would love to see you. You and I could talk for hours. Is there any takeaways, anything you want to share with us? Because I hope we keep this link forever. I want to look back at this in another 30 years and say, peter, we'll be happier.

I Hope I have 30 years left. Yeah, we're getting old. No, I appreciate you reaching out on this subject, too. It means a lot to me. There are, like I said, a lot of people from our old neighborhood that were very powerful and supportive when this happened, and they were not forgetting, forgotten either. We still have a lot of people to talk about it occasionally. They'll say, you know, how's everybody doing? You know, it was. It was something that rocked our little park neighborhood when it happened. And it happens, and we have to move on from it and talk about it like we're doing now, and remember good times as well as bad, and.

We'Re going to remember the good. Peter, thank you so much for doing this.

My pleasure.

And we're. Now we have to stay. And now we have not an excuse. That's a bad. Now we have to stay in touch for many years. And I, you know, we. We've caught up on the phone. I think you and I have had three or four conversations, and I've really enjoyed it. And I always like thinking back to the Oak park days. And just like you, I haven't been back to Michigan in 13 years, since my grandmother passed away. So maybe we'll get back there together or something sometime.

Sounds great. Sounds great, Michael.

Take care.

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Sam.