From our story on Sabres.com…
Kyle Okposo once stepped into a hotel elevator and had an experience he would never forget. Even for a professional athlete, just being in a room with Kobe Bryant was special.
"I didn't say anything to him, but he just had that presence about him," Okposo said inside the Sabres' dressing room Monday. "When he was in the same room, you knew."
Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, were among the nine victims of a helicopter crash that occurred in Calabasas, Calif. on Sunday. Like Kobe himself, the news transcended basketball. The soccer star, Neymar, dedicated a goal in his honor. Chants of his name were heard at the NFL's Pro Bowl. In Montreal, a somber Alex Ovechkin reflected on their interactions.
Count members of the Sabres among those who found inspiration in Bryant's life and grief in his passing. Jack Eichel wrote in an open letter following his recovery from a high-ankle sprain in 2016 about the motivation he felt watching the documentary Muse, which detailed Bryant's comeback from a ruptured Achilles' tendon at age 34.
The Sabres captain found himself revisiting that inspiration after practice on Monday.
"It's obviously kind of on the back end of his career and I just look at the way that he rehabbed himself, the way that he worked, the way that he did everything to get himself back to play again and even though their team wasn't great, I thought it was motivational for somebody who's done so much just to feel like he had more to prove and he had so much more to give," Eichel said.
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