David Rittich arranges heartwarming surprise for his autistic brother.

Beautiful.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 5 years ago
David Rittich arranges heartwarming surprise for his autistic brother.

This had got to be one of the most heartwarming stories of the entire National Hockey League season.

After two seasons of mixed results at the National Hockey League level 26 year old Calgary Flames goaltender David Rittich has finally had what you would consider a breakout season, one that has seen him take on a heavy work load in the Calgary Flames net. That increased responsibility has coincided with the best performances of Rittich's career and as you would expect in the case of such a young man this has resulted in a tremendous amount of pride for his immediate family. 

Rittich was fortunate enough to get to share the experience with his family this week when they flew in from his native Cazech Republic to spend some time in Calgary with him and the cameras were rolling for at least some of it. It was this reunion with his family that produced one of the more magical moments of the season not due to a surprise for David himself, but instead one that he prepared for his brother. Rittich's brother, Tomas Rittich, has autism and as you would imagine that likely leads David to want to take extra special care of him, something he did this week.

You see although Tomas' brother actually plays for the Calgary Flames, the young man is actually enamored with another member of the Calgary Flames' roster. You might be thinking of a player like Johnny Gaudreau of Mike Giordano but you would be completely wrong, it's a very different character that Tomas is a huge fan of.

“He loves Harvey (the) Hound,” said David as per Sportsnet.

“When watching games he always looking for him. He’s not really care for me – he’s trying to find Harvey.”

That's right, in spite of having a brother who actually plays on the team, Tomas' is apparently Harvey the Hound's number one fan. Now not only is that absolutely adorable but it's also rather amusing when you think about the reality of the situation. That being said though David does not mind one bit and in fact went out of his way to set up a meeting between Harvey and Tomas and the results were as terrific as you would imagine.

[pub]


Source: