From Kingston to Seattle: Kraken’s Kartye, Mariners’ Brash beat the odds

In 2020, there was no NHL team playing in Seattle, nor was there a Major League Baseball player from Kingston, Ont.

Three short years later, two cities a mere 4,237 kilometres apart have developed a sporting connection nothing short of an extreme long shot.

In the past 10 days, two unheralded athletes from the modest-sized Eastern Ontario city have enjoyed the finest moments of their young careers playing with the Seattle Kraken and Mariners, respectively.

Back home, it’s a huge sense of pride for those who know rookie forward Tye Kartye, 22, and second-year reliever Matt Brash, 24, best.

“If you were going to point on the map to where Kingston kids would end up and play professional sports, I don’t know if Seattle is the part of the map I’d point to,” said Geoff Stewart, a long-time baseball and basketball coach and biology teacher at Bayridge Secondary School, the 550-student institution where Brash once was a star pitcher for the Blazers and where Kartye’s dad, Todd, teaches chemistry. “Given that Matt’s the first baseball player we’ve ever produced to make it to the major-league level, I don’t even know if baseball would be a sport anybody would think a Kingston kid would make it to the show in. It’s been really cool.”

While Kingston has a rich sporting history (think Kirk Muller, Jayna Hefford, Doug Gilmour, Harry Sinden, Simon Whitfield and Queen’s Golden Gaels football, to name a few), you’d be hard-pressed to find a week as exciting as the one beginning April 24 for two athletes from Canada’s first capital.

It all started Wednesday, April 26. Called up from Seattle’s AHL affiliate for depth, the undrafted Kartye received word he’d make his NHL debut that night in Denver for Game 5 of a first-round series against the reigning Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche.

“Playing,” the AHL rookie of the year texted his mom, Richelle, just after noon ET, a story first reported by NHL.com. The game started at 9:30 p.m. ET and Kartye was filling in for the injured Jared McCann.

Todd got permission from the principal to bolt. The couple raced 270 km down Highway 401 and Highway 407 (in this case, the pricey toll will be worth it) to the Toronto airport for a 5 p.m. flight — they were at the departure gate with 20 minutes to spare. Upon arrival in Denver, they cabbed to a hotel to drop their stuff off, watched Tye’s first shift on FaceTime in an Uber with Richelle’s brother on the other end holding up the phone to a TV, and made it into the arena for Shift 2.

As if that wasn’t enough, Kartye scored his first career NHL goal in the second period to give Seattle a 2-1 lead, becoming just the eighth player to score while making his NHL debut in the playoffs. A shot of Richelle and Todd celebrating made the rounds.

The Kraken won the game and the series, and Kartye has remained in the lineup for the next four games, adding another goal with his impressive shot in a loss to Dallas in Game 2 of the second round this week.

“We were just glad we made it that particular day,” Todd said. “That was the goal, just to see him play that first game for sure. Once that’s done, you’re never going to get that back.”

Just two days later, Todd was back in class working on next to no sleep (he was in bed at 3 a.m. on Friday) as dozens of Brash’s friends and family made a trip of their own down Highway 401 to see him pitch at Rogers Centre against the Toronto Blue Jays.

Brash, who was converted to a reliever from a starter in the minors after opening last season in the bigs, got into all three games of the series against Toronto — and saved his best for last.

With Seattle up 10-8 in the bottom of the 10th, the Mariners called on the young reliever. With two on and one out, Brash struck out Bo Bichette and retired Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on a flyout for his first career save, snapping the Blue Jays’ five-game win streak in the process.

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Although Brash also pitched in the wild-card round in Toronto last year, it wasn’t in this kind of high-leverage situation.

“To see him in that stadium is just unbelievable,” Sandra Brash, Matt’s mother, said while taking a break from her job at the Kingston airport, where she’s spent 32 years dealing with ground handling and fuelling. “A dream come true. You just don’t think that’s ever going to happen.”

So why did last week happen for Brash and Kartye, two guys no one could have predicted a few short years ago would reach the heights they have?

Well, hard work and resilience clearly go a long way. Brash resisted the temptation to play on strong minor baseball teams in Toronto, instead staying home to play baseball and basketball with his buddies. He caught the eye of little Niagara University just across the border in Lewiston, N.Y., where he did enough to capture the attention of San Diego Padres, who picked him in the fourth round of the 2019 MLB Draft.

A year after that, he was a player to be named later in a deal to the Mariners. This was no Connor Bedard or Victor Wembanyama.

The same can be said for Kartye, an eighth-round pick of the Soo Greyhounds. He scored all of four goals in his first season with the OHL team after he was cut the year earlier, going back to Kingston to play midget and high-school hockey. But in his second OHL year, he scored 25 goals and then notched 45 in his third go-around, earning a training-camp invite from the Kraken and, eventually, a spot in the AHL with Coachella Valley in California.

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“What I’ve said to people many times over the years is, if you’re looking for a blueprint on how to parent an elite athlete, Jamie and Sandra Brash and Todd and Richelle Kartye are people who offer that blueprint,” said Stewart, who’s had a front-row seat to both stories. “They have produced incredibly wonderful kids who are fundamentally good people first and don’t have that sense of entitlement that sometimes comes with being at the centre of a high-performance team.”

Todd said he always simply wished the best for his son. “His ultimate goal was always to play in the NHL,” he said. “You just want your kids to be happy, get on with their lives, enjoy what they’re doing and just have a happy life. Right now, he’s definitely living that, which is fantastic.”

On Sunday, the Mariners complete a series with the reigning World Series-champion Houston Astros in Seattle, with Brash looking to bounce back after giving up his first home run ever as a reliever in a tough loss on Friday.

Meanwhile, the Kraken — who also drafted former Kingston Frontenacs star Shane Wright in the first round last year, start onetime Frontenacs goalie Philipp Grubauer and have ex-Frontenacs coach Paul McFarland as an assistant — host the Stars in a series tied, 1-1.

Quite a day on the West Coast, but equally exciting for many in the Limestone City.

“It’s unbelievable, eh?” Sandra Brash said. “It’s got to be something in the Kingston water.”

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