The NHL’s best and worst this week: Tim Thomas’ saga reminds us that empathy still matters
I remember a player once using Thomas’ name in jest. When I asked him if he thought about what he’d like to do after he retired, he said something along the lines of: “But whatever I do, I’ll be around. I’m not going to fall off the face of the Earth like I’m Tim Thomas.”
When it was rumored that Thomas was going to be a banner captain during the Bruins’ playoff run last spring, the excitement was palpable. Boston is the city where Thomas became a folk hero. It’s where, after a decade toiling in the minors and Europe, Thomas finally became an NHL starter at age 31, then became the oldest winner of the Conn Smythe trophy, at 37. Might he actually show his face here, all these years later? (Narrator: He did not).
Thomas became a punchline among hockey reporters. The few details we knew about his personal life and beliefs made it easy, and helped hatch conspiracy theories. He famously boycotted the Bruins trip to the President Barack Obama White House, because “government has grown out of control.” There was word that Thomas (a Michigan native) lived in Colorado, but the altitude was too much for him, so he and his family moved to Idaho. And that he lived in a bunker.
I tried contacting Thomas twice in the past two years, to no avail. Then we tried to do a story told through teammates and friends. It didn’t go very far. A former teammate of his on the 2011 Stanley Cup-winning team politely told me he didn’t feel comfortable talking about Thomas, but gave me the phone numbers of two people who might. Neither of those two people ever called me back.
So when it was announced that Thomas was being inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame this year — and that he planned on showing up to the ceremony — you can bet I was intrigued. So I went.
This time, he showed up.
When Thomas addressed the small group of reporters on Thursday in a conference room at the Marriott Marquis in D.C., what came out of his mouth shook me. And it taught me a lesson about empathy.
Thomas revealed that in 2013-14, his last season in the NHL, he sustained a concussion that changed his life forever. He finished the season, and played in the IIHF World Championships that spring, because on the ice he was “able to be like 97 percent maybe, 95 percent of what I was before.”
But off the ice, he was wrecked.
“I woke up the next morning after it and I couldn’t decide what I wanted to eat, where I wanted to go,” Thomas said. “I couldn’t plan a schedule. I survived following the team schedule the rest of the year and just made it through that season.”
When Thomas retired, he couldn’t watch hockey because his “brain wasn’t functioning well enough to be able to keep up with the game.” He says he moved out to the woods for a few years because he “couldn’t communicate with anybody.” He felt it was difficult to maintain relationships with his former teammates. He didn’t even talk to his dad.
It was devastating to hear, and difficult for Thomas to share. He fought back tears. “I didn’t want to talk about this,” he said. “I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to tell the world this stuff. Not till I felt ready, and I didn’t feel ready yet. But here I am.”
Hearing him speak, I felt so awful for all the times we joked about Tim Thomas. Truth is, we had no idea what was really going on. Afterward, I immediately thought back to two years earlier when I met an NHL scout and was talking to him about starting goaltenders in the league. When he brought up then-Sabres goalie Robin Lehner, he said, “that guy is f—ing crazy.”
As we have since learned, Lehner was battling a lot during that time — alcoholism, a dependence on sleeping pills, and post-traumatic stress disorder as well as bipolar disorder which, to that point, had gone undiagnosed.
Just as it was brave for Lehner to come forward with his diagnosis, it was courageous for Thomas to address his current situation on Thursday. I hope, in some way, it was cathartic for him to share. For the rest of us, it was a sobering reminder to not assume you know someone’s story, especially if they haven’t shared it. Because the truth is, we really don’t know what anyone is going through behind closed doors.
Sidney Crosby does a lot of good that often isn’t publicized. Here’s one example: Crosby and his equipment sponsor, CCM, donated 87 sets of hockey equipment recently. That’s not exactly newsworthy. What is? Who they donated it to: Underrepresented communities, such as the Hockey Nova Scotia black youth hockey program, and the Hockey Nova Scotia indigenous female hockey program. Hockey Nova Scotia had this to say: “In the spirit of the holiday season, Crosby surprised eight participants from the three programs with their new hockey equipment on Monday afternoon via video and announced his commitment to fulfilling the donation of the 87 sets in the new year.”
The Detroit Red Wings finally won their first game in a month, snapping a 12-game losing streak. For context, there were four NHL head coaching changes in that span. The win was a good one: A 5-2 victory over the Winnipeg Jets. It was iced by this beauty of an empty-netter by Filip Hronek, who lifted the puck from behind his own net, across the entire length of the ice and into the goal — without touching the ice. When we showed this clip on “Around the Horn” on Friday, host Tony Reali was most impressed by the camera man’s shot.
Another sweet goal from this week: This overtime tally by Elias Pettersson, in which Brock Boeser and the abandoned stick both earn assists:
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