John McGrath: Former Sprinker rink rat does Tacoma proud

Aside from the Easter Egg roll, acknowledging a championship team at the White House is the most benign of presidential tasks.

News only is made if a prominent player skips the event as a statement of political dissent or, in the case of Marshawn Lynch, avoiding the credibility crisis associated with dressing up for a special occasion.

But when President Barack Obama greeted the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks earlier this month — a ritual that never gets old for the president, who makes his other home in Chicago — his remarks about backup goalie Scott Darling warmed my heart and teased my brain.

Could this be the son of the News Tribune contest winner who got the opportunity to accompany me on a “Dream Trip” in 1992? I’d done an Internet search last year on Scott Darling — he’d replaced struggling goalie Corey Crawford in Game 1 of the first round, saving 42 shots in a double-overtime victory against Nashville — and learned the longtime minor-league journeyman was born in Virginia and attended college in Maine.

Oh, well.

Then Obama cited Darling at the White House, and I searched again. This time I found a story referring to his well-traveled childhood as the son of an Army officer who once was stationed at Fort Lewis.

Bingo.

I got to know Darling’s father in a way most people don’t get to know each other: Six days on the road, just the two of us, the kind of scenario that would find Walter Matthau attempting to strangle Jack Lemmon after 30 minutes.

Turned out we had a blast, thanks to a quirky story idea suggested by my sports editor: Visit the six Major League ballparks on the West Coast — from Seattle to San Diego, with stops in Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Francisco and Oakland — on a threadbare budget.

Sit in the cheapest seats. Eat the cheapest meals. Stay in the cheapest, well, you get idea. Keep a log of the expenses and let’s shoot for a maximum of $327.50 per person.

And one other thing: Do all this with a reader whose essay best explains the motivation to participate in such a trip.

“Sounds fun,” I told the boss, somehow resisting the urge to gag. What rational person would want to spend six days with me?

To my surprise, about 50 readers responded. We chose the essay submitted by Army captain Scott Darling as No. 1.

Darling’s stripes proved substantial. He knew of a military post that allowed us to set up a tent on a campground outside San Francisco. Upon returning North, he had access to The Presidio, the former Army station that provided rooms with clean sheets, a refrigerator, cable TV and a postcard-perfect view of the Golden Gate bridge.

Not bad for $10.50 a night.

(The prices were a hoot. Two left-field seats for a Giants-Mets game at Candlestick Park cost us a collective $2.75, because Scott got in for free as a member of the military. Dodger Stadium was more expensive — $6.00 for general admission, $3.00 on the military card — but, still, $9.00 for a pair of tickets to a regular-season baseball game? I went to a movie last week and paid $7.50 for a small bag of popcorn.)

We ended up traveling 2,400 miles in a week, watching six baseball games, and returned under budget at $299.78 per person.

Scott Darling and I went our separate ways after the trip. A year or two later, he sent me an e-mail about a pee-wee league at Sprinker Ice Center, where his son was developing impressive hockey skills. A possible story?

Pee-wee league hockey didn’t intrigue me, and now you know where this is going.

The son whose potential I dismissed labored through a minor-league career complicated by the same hard-partying habits that got him dismissed from the University of Maine. Five years ago, Scott Darling Jr. concluded his dream of playing in the NHL was unobtainable unless he made profound lifestyle adjustments.

He gave up the beer binges and worked out, losing weight and gaining confidence. When the Blackhawks called for a backup goaltender, he was fit to answer them.

On a road trip that found the Hawks in Arizona this season, the goalie with a checkered past was accosted by a homeless guy who was hungry. Darling called for a Uber driver, and arranged to put the stranger in a hotel.

For a month.

Darling didn’t want his random act of kindness to be publicized, but when the Uber driver shared the story with a passenger who competed in a Phoenix recreational hockey league, the random act of kindness went viral via Twitter.

“I couldn’t have more respect for Scott’s modesty,” Obama said at the White House, “but now that it’s out there, I think it’s a good deed that bears repeating. A champion reached out to help somebody who needed a hand, even though he didn’t have to, even though nobody was looking, even though he wasn’t asking anybody for credit.

“I’d like to think that reflects something about our city, about Chicago; it’s a very American thing to do. So Scott, I want to say ‘thank you.’ ”

From Sprinker rink rat to White House honoree, Scott Darling has secured a place in Tacoma sports history.

I suspect his dad had something to do with this. We spent six days together, and not once did he threaten to strangle me.

This story was originally published February 27, 2016 at 5:11 PM with the headline "John McGrath: Former Sprinker rink rat does Tacoma proud."