New Dad Brooks Orpik Practices After 30 Minutes of Sleep, Wears Hospital Bracelet

March 25, 2015 10:29 am

Photo: Monumental Network

On Monday, Washington Capitals defenseman Brooks Orpik missed practice for a pretty darn good reason. His wife Erin was going into labor with the couple’s first child.

Even though they left in the morning, Erin didn’t deliver until later that day. John Carlson and Karl Alzner brought their teammate lunch and dinner. Then, finally, tiny Harlow Lilly Orpik was born.

Harlow’s hard-working 34-year-old father would eventually get some sleep, or at least a 30-minute nap, before he left to join his teammates on the ice for practice.

According to NBC Washington’s Dianna Russini, Orpik did so while wearing the hospital bracelet he was tagged with the day before.

Naturally, Orpik was ribbed by his teammates. Though I’m sad there are no kale jokes.

Orpik said teammates quickly started joking about buying organic, grass-fed baby food. Carlson/Alzner brought him dinner last night.

— Alex Prewitt (@alex_prewitt) March 24, 2015

Eventually they turned serious. The best quote was from long-time teammate on the Pens, Matt Niskanen.

Niskanen on Orpik: "If he cares about his daughter as much as he does about his training and diet, he’ll be a good father."

— Alex Prewitt (@alex_prewitt) March 24, 2015

Orpik joins a long list of Caps daddies. From Prewitt:

Orpik has company in the fatherhood department. Alzner, Beagle, Erskine, Nicklas Backstrom, Troy Brouwer, Curtis Glencross, Eric Fehr, Jason Chimera, Braden Holtby and Tim Gleason all have children, and John Carlson and Evgeny Kuznetsov are expecting their firsts soon.

As for the name, Brooks deferred to his wife.

“I didn’t have much input to be honest with you,” Orpik said to Monumental Network. “That was my wife’s creativity. I just had to agree to something. She did a good job with it. She’s got everything organized and prepared months in advance. I know a lot of people wait to see what the baby looks like, but she had that picked out and it seems fitting.”