(Above) Connor Knapp, CEO and founder of Sterling Heart Care, a health care management company focusing on cardiovascular disease.
GAME CHANGERS:
How Three Pro-Athletes Tackled New Opportunities in Their Off-the-field Journey
From BuffaloRising.com (December 16, 2021)
We sat down with three professional athletes, Connor Knapp and Morris Titanic (Buffalo Sabres), and Maddie Elia (Buffalo Beauts) who hung up their skates, and transitioned from their successful professional hockey careers into regular working life in Buffalo. And the trio have certainly made the most of their new direction!
Any pro-athlete will tell you, it’s impossible to know when retirement will rear its head. It comes at a different time and in different avenues for everybody.
Connor Knapp grew up in York, N.Y., a small town south of Rochester. He and his three siblings grew up loving hockey, but the Knapp family had even more in common – they all played goaltender.
“We had this big van, and sometimes we fit four sets of [goalie] equipment in there,” Knapp said of his early hockey days. “My oldest brother got into it, and there was just this follow-on effect … We had a madhouse sometimes growing up.”
Knapp’s skill at the goaltender position took him to Boston to play for the Jr. Bruins when he was 17 before heading to the college level where he played at Miami University (Ohio) for four years, going 46-22-11 in his career with the RedHawks.
In 2009, after his freshman year at Miami, a dream came true. He was selected by the Buffalo Sabres 164th overall in the sixth round of that year’s NHL Entry Draft, and would then sign a two-year entry level contract with the Sabres in 2012.