San Jose Sharks invite teen fighting life-threatening disease to suit up with team.
It was a heartwarming scene inside a cold hockey arena [last] Tuesday night, reports the NYDailyNews.
The San Jose Sharks signed 17-year-old Sam Tageson to a one-day contract, letting the teen participate in warmups, giving him his own jersey, and letting him skate through the shark head at San Jose’s SAP Center.
Sam is battling a life-threatening heart condition. He was born with two heart chambers, not four, a condition known as hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Despite his doctor’s wishes, he remains active, playing hockey and skateboarding. Tageson qualifies for a heart transplant, the Mercury News reported, but his current condition doesn’t require him to be on a waiting list.
“It’s supposed to be debilitating,” Lisa Mills, his mother, told the paper. “They said he would be the child that would never ride a bicycle, never do any of that. … The doctors all through the years have said give him golf clubs, take the hockey stick away. We tried. It doesn’t work.”
As he was introduced over the PA system when he left the bench before the game began, the emotions of the moment took over and Tageson could be seen crying as he waved to the crowd.
He surely wasn’t the only one who shed a tear.
First published on CBC, and New York Daily News
Photo credit: Comcast Sportsnet