Tuukka Rask had every right to slam the NHL bubble atmosphere as “dull”

The hockey tone police are it again. How dare Rask say what he actually felt!

It’s hard to get athletes, especially hockey players, to give honest answers to questions about their performance of how they’re feeling. Years of talking to the media have trained them in giving ineffectual soundbites that often times don’t say much of anything at all. In many cases, either after a win or a loss, you’re likely to get pretty much the same answer.

Welp, that was not the case Thursday night as Boston Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask gave some straightforward responses to the media after the team’s 3-2 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

In response to a press question on Zoom about how he’s feeling mentally after back-to-back games, Rask was refreshingly candid.

“Considering I’ve had four months off, I’m not in prime shape,” Rask said. “I’m trying to get there. I’m just trying to have fun and play the game. I’m not stressing too much about the results and whatnot…Just go out there and have fun, and see what happens for me.”

You can imagine how well that soundbite went over with Boston fans who  have had a tortured relationship with the NHL net minder over 11 seasons.

Still, Rask isn’t wrong. Players have been idle for four months, so expecting them to be in top shape, mentally and physically, out of the gate is ridiculous. Also, fans like being lied too. No one wants to hear their team’s goalie basically give a shrug emoji when asked about how they’re feeling. What they really want is some canned quotes about compete level and intensity. They want the fiction upheld, and nothing more.

Rask, who is a previous Vezina Trophy winner and finalist for the 2019-2020 season, also got real about the NHL’s bubble atmosphere, calling it “dull.”

“To be honest with you it doesn’t feel like playoff hockey out there with no fans. It feels like an exhibition game…You’re obviously trying to play as hard as you can…but when you play in your home rink or away rink, there’s fans around and it creates a buzz around you. There’s none of that. It feels dull at times. There’s moments that there might be scrums or what not but then it’s five minutes and it’s coast-to-coast to hockey…and it just feels like an exhibition game.”

Again, there’s no lie in what Rask is saying.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are weird as hell. Having no fans is super weird. Pumped in crowd noise is not the same thing as real fans. People wearing masks all around is disconcerting because, hey, remember the global pandemic? That has to be a mental strain, and that’s not including that players have been away from their friends and families for weeks.

Because empathy is overrated, fans and media alike were quick to tut-tut Rask for daring to say what he was actually thinking and feeling, and became the tone police.  At least one NHL columnist outright stated that Rask was “wrong to say it”, while another said Rask didn’t do himself “any favors.”  ESPN’s Linda Cohn said he might be better off “sitting on the bench.”

I can understand fans getting bent out of shape about the Rask quote because fans don’t want to be reasonable. Fandom, by nature, is supposed to be emotional and intense, letting people attach outsize important to the most mundane of events. The finger shaking from media though is laughable. How dare an athlete not buy into the constantly puffed up narrative that they are hockey playing robots, all intensity all the time. Rask had a momentary lapse after a loss where he showed some actual depth. Rather than treat him like a real person, who has ups and downs, too many were quick to chide him for saying what he really felt.

There’s no point in pretending that hockey is normal right now when absolutley nothing is normal. For those that can’t handle that level of honesty, well, that says more about them than it says about Rask.