Edmonton’s Gilbert Brule picks up an unlikely hitchhiker: Bono

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U2 lead singer Bono and his assistant were walking in west Vancouver, Canada, on Tuesday when they got caught in the rain. Fortunately for them, Edmonton Oilers center Gilbert Brule and his girlfriend were driving by, taking their dog to a nearby park.

They stopped to pick up the two hitchhikers, then realized who they were. To thank them, Bono offered Brule and his girlfriend backstage passes for the U2 concert Wednesday night at Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium. The couple sold their tickets to Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals between Boston and Vancouver, took a flight back to Edmonton and went to the show with Brule’s mom.

“I like people who play ice hockey -- they stop for hitchhikers. I know this from experience,” Bono told the concert crowd. “I was hitchhiking in Vancouver yesterday, actually I was! And this guy and his girlfriend picked me up. He was cool, an ice hockey player, his name was Gilbert Brule as it happens. I’m so grateful I’ve decided I want to be Gilbert Brule.”

With hockey on his mind, Bono compared his bandmates with former Oiler greats, calling the Edge “the Wayne Gretzky of U2.”

“We go to walk our dog and Bono ends up in our car,” Brule told the Edmonton Journal.

-- Houston Mitchell