Jeff Carter and Mike Richards, two young stars of the Philadelphia Flyers National Hockey League team were traded almost a year ago.  Both had long contracts and one had a “no-trade” provision about to kick in.

Then, the “dark” day when the Flyers shocked the world of hockey and sent their stars Richards to the Los Angeles Kings, a hapless team that never won the Stanley Cup in 45 years and Carter to Columbus, a small city expansion team that could extinguish a star real fast.

Richards was disappointed and hurt.  Carter was angry.

Fast forward to June, 2012 several months after Richards’ new team, The Kings, unexpectedly acquired Carter from Columbus and reunited the two NHL stars.

June 11 the Kings finally won the Stanley Cup.  Richards and Carter had been to the finals with the Flyers in 2010 but lost.

Mike Richards and Jeff Carter had no way of knowing when they were traded and life was bleak that out of bad would come all this good.

What if they had given up? What if they thought, now I will play my entire NHL career and never win a Cup.

We can’t predict the future — even what’s going to happen a year from now.

Isn’t that great?  

Remember it when times are tough.