Former 1st round draft pick makes shocking career announcement following injury

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Hunter Bowman
June 21, 2024 (5:22 PM)

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NHL veteran to make an official retirement announcement next weekend

During a recent interview with Guelph Today, NHL veteran Bryan Little revealed the issues he has been dealing with, mentioning a career ending injury.

Bryan Little states on June 30th, he will officially announce his retirement. However he hasn't played for over four years but is still under contract and on June 30th, his contract will unfortunately expire.

"It's more just kind of a technicality thing being on their books. My heart was still in Winnipeg and I was still following those guys because I knew a lot of the guys on the team still. It's July that I'm officially retired so it'd be nice to be done with that." Little said.

"One of the things that was the toughest about it was that I felt fine," he said. "It was just the unpredictable nature of what happens if I get hit really bad again. That was kind of the thing that kept me from playing again and believe me I saw a lot � I saw three or four specialists and none of them recommended playing contact sports again. It was tough but days like today when I kind of found something else to be passionate about, it definitely helps."

Little was the 12th overall pick during the 2006 NHL Draft, and everyone had high expectations of him, and without a doubt he met them, playing in 843 career games with the Atlanta Thrashers and Winnipeg Jets, tallying 521 points.

Definitely heartbreaking to hear players retire from any sports due to an injury, but everyone here at NY Rangers Insider wishes you the best.