From Tampa to Seattle to Tampa in 11 Days – Alex Barre-Boulet’s Journey Shows the Human Side of Giving Up – The Athletic

Alex Barre-Boulet He had only been up for half an hour, running around his room at the Fairmont Olympic in Seattle on October 20, when he received his second life-changing call in weeks.

Barre-Boulet, 24, has requested an exemption by extension Seattle Kraken just nine days earlier, hadn’t slept much that night. Kraken arrived home around 3 a.m. after the team’s flight from New Jersey, the last stop on their first five-city road trip.

Barre-Boulet is finally ready to carry on from his days with Lightning. Tampa Bay signed with the center in 2018, and he went on to play part-time roles and won the Stanley Cup last season. This month, he was one of the last in training camp. He wanted to explore Seattle, his new home. Heck, even unzip. His wife, Anne-Marie Labrecque, six months pregnant with their first child, was on the flight, waiting at the gate of Toronto’s airport for a connecting flight from Quebec City. At the very least, they will have three days off to reunite before starting life at home for two weeks.

That’s when Barre-Boulet’s cell phone rang. It was Kraken GM Ron Francis.

“We are bringing you back to the exemptions,” Francis said.

Every day, an email is sent out with a list of players who have been abandoned or claimed, and how much. It often becomes Twitter’s fodder. But there’s also a human element to this, a family element.

Just ask Labrecque, 24, who was stressed at her Air Canada gate in Toronto.