Sean Romeo set records at Ohio State, then gave four strangers a second chance
The former Buckeyes and ECHL goaltender died Saturday at 31 from complications of a stroke, and his organs gave four other people a second chance at life.
Sean Romeo never played an NHL game, and that's not the point today. He gave Ohio State four years of a goalie good enough to get the Buckeyes back to a Frozen Four for the first time since 1998.
When a stroke took him at 31, his family made sure four other people got the chance he didn't. That's the story worth telling, not just the box score.
Romeo died Saturday from complications of a stroke he suffered on October 15, the ECHL confirmed. He was an organ donor. His heart, lungs, liver and kidneys went to four people the ECHL said are getting "a second chance at life" because of him. A celebration of his life is set for November 9 in Cary, North Carolina.
He started at the University of Maine before transferring to Ohio State, sitting out the 2016-17 season under NCAA transfer rules. The wait paid off.
In 2017-18 he was Second Team All-Big Ten, the Buckeyes' first Mike Richter Award semifinalist, and the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Midwest Regional as Ohio State reached its first Frozen Four in two decades.
He set the program's shutout-streak record that November, 204 minutes and 27 seconds. He finished his career fourth in Buckeye history in goals-against average at 2.22 and tied for fourth in save percentage at .919. His 22 wins in 2018 are tied for second-most in a single season at Ohio State.
He left with a finance degree, three Scholar-Athlete honors and the NCAA's Elite 90 Award for the highest GPA at that Frozen Four.
The pros were a grind that never found its level. Thirty ECHL games across seven stops — Cincinnati, the Florida Everblades, Adirondack, Norfolk, Indy, South Carolina and Kansas City — and no NHL contract ever came.
That's most of hockey, honestly. Thousands of guys are good enough to play professionally and not lucky enough to play forever. Romeo's Everblades stint ties him, lightly, to the barn in Estero that Panthers fans already know, and that's reason enough for Ferda to tell this one in full rather than let it pass as a wire blurb.
He went on to a business career in Chicago after hockey. That's the part of these stories that never gets enough space.
Almost nobody who plays goalie in the ECHL ends up playing goalie forever, and most of them build a second life that has nothing to do with saves and goals-against. Romeo's second life is the one that gave someone else a third.
The ECHL and Ohio State both released statements honoring him. Ferda's condolences go to his family and to everyone in the Buckeyes' and the Everblades' rooms who knew him.
