A humble Long Island hero who is active-duty military and an FDNY Bravest recently got the surprise of a lifetime from the New York Islanders: a new pickup truck he desperately needed.
“I’m on top of the world right now,” lucky Isles diehard and married dad of four Joseph O’Brien, 36, told The Post after team hockey legend Butch Goring escorted him Wednesday to the blue Ford F150 STX with custom seats upholstered featuring the club’s logo.
“When Butch handed me those keys, I was like, ‘No way.’”
The hockey team could not have picked a more deserving person.
O’Brien, who has four young daughters, runs the Vice Doughnuts & Coffee shop on Farmingdale’s Main Street when he’s not with the Army Reserve or working for the South Bronx’s Ladder 31, where he has spent time patching up his 2007 Toyota Corolla.
“It was starting to go,” O’Brien said of his wheels. “I use that as my main commuter to get to The Bronx every day.
“Having a new truck is perfect timing. It’s crazy,” said the dad, who is goalie for his firehouse hockey team.
O’Brien joined the FDNY in 2022, one year after starting Vice as a food truck, which later grew into a prime real-estate brick-and-mortar in the heart of town in 2023.
As a member of the Army Reserve, O’Brien was previously assigned to guarding “high value targets” at Guantanamo Bay over a decade ago.
“We saw a lot of other detainees that were responsible for 9/11, which was probably one of the craziest things I’ve seen,” said O”Brien, who is also from Farmingdale.
“As a New Yorker, it kind of hit home seeing that.”
Pulling the goalie’s leg
Throughout his service to the nation and New Yorkers, O”Brien always quietly carried his role.
“I really don’t like wearing the uniform out in public just because you get all the attention,” he said.
O’Brien’s wife, Gina, who does the baking at Vice, finally wanted her valiant husband to have a moment of his own. So she wrote to the Islanders and explained why he was worthy of recognition.
The team responded.
It first created the guise that Goring was doing a small-business spotlight on the shop and wanted a tour.
“I was just grateful that they were coming here to do the business spotlight,” said O’Brien, who raised money for the family of slain NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller of neighboring Massapequa Park.
O’Brien got to tell the Stanley Cup winner all about his own passion for hockey and how he had been assigned to Ladder 31 — the same number his favorite goalie, Billy Smith, wore for the Islanders.
The firefighter even tried recruiting Goring, who touts a championship ring, for some upcoming games that Ladder 31 has.
While they were yucking it up in the back of the store, Islanders staff drove up in the big four-wheeler donated by Hempstead Ford, with mascot Sparky the Dragon riding on the back.
“He did not know what was going on. He had no idea,” Goring said.
“I’m kidding him about negotiating for some donuts, and all of a sudden I go, ‘How about this [truck]?’ … There’s no one more deserving than people like him.”
The shock and excitement on O’Brien’s face said it all, as loved ones and close friends from the firehouse all came out for the special day.
It especially hit home with all of the uncertainty in the Middle East.
“If things escalate in Iran, they could call me up tomorrow and say, ‘Hey, we’re sending you.’ That would be devastating,” O’Brien said.
“It’s just so great to have everyone in the same room, all my brothers from the firehouse, my family, my girls. It’s just amazing.”
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