NHL player picks up Bono hitchhiking

Say what you want about fist-wagging, trash-talking hockey players. They apparently have a soft spot for helping out roadside strangers in need.

Last year, Capitals' forward Brook Laich stopped to fix a flat tire for a mother and daughter stranded on a Washington D.C. bridge.

And this week, Edmonton Oiler Gilbert Brule and his girlfriend stopped to pick up two wayward hitchhikers in Vancouver. It just so happened that one of the guys holding out his thumb was none other than U2 frontman Bono.

According to the Edmonton Journal, Brule and his girlfriend Kelsey Nichols were driving with their dog when they noticed a pair of hitchhikers. Brule immediately recognized one of them as Bono but Nichols, who was behind the wheel, was skeptical and kept driving.

Finally Brule convinced her to turn around and pull up to the pair. Sure enough, it was the Irish rock star and his assistant.

According to the Journal, "Bono and his assistant sat in the back with the couple's dog. The four chatted about Brule's hockey career, about Dublin and Bono's apparent love for Vancouver."

Bono invited the couple to a U2 show in Edmonton, where the singer even recounted the hitchhiking anecdote on stage, declaring: "I'm ever so grateful. I've decided that I want to be Gilbert Brule." (See video below).

It's pretty astonishing that such a well-known celebrity would be hitchhiking - let alone be picked up by an NHL hockey player. But as the U2 song goes: Sometimes you can't make it on your own.