Boston Bruins
“It’s easy for me to just forget who I was before, so sometimes stuff like this reminds me of what I have done in the past and what I’ve accomplished.”
During his best years between the pipes, Tim Thomas was seemingly the conductor of chaos as the Bruins’ last line of defense — scrambling, diving, and shifting all over the frozen sheet to turn aside volley after volley of vulcanized rubber.
These days are a lot less frantic for Thomas, with the 51-year-old Bruins great now spending most of his time living in Vermont.
“I live a pretty quiet life,” Thomas said Tuesday at the Sports Museum’s “The Tradition” awards ceremony. “I actually like that. I mean, not a lot of traffic where I’m at.”
A lot has changed over the years for both Thomas and the Bruins, who regained relevance in this market amid those years where Thomas served on a core anchored by other franchise greats like Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron.
When stopped by Bruins fans, Thomas is still shocked at how many future netminders his frantic play in the crease seemingly provided a template to follow, as unorthodox as it might have been.
“The goalies I meet, the vast majority of them tell me that I inspired them to play goalie,” Thomas said. “And I’ve met so many people that have said that I can’t believe there’s enough players left to play forward, it seems like. There’s so many goalies out there. They don’t usually ask me for any advice.”
The soft-spoken Thomas often opts to shirk the spotlight. But he has enjoyed his recent visits to Boston — especially when he’s able to take in games at TD Garden.
“When I first was around this Garden, it was kind of in that in-between era, right? Where the parking lot was not developed at all — you walk in, there’s a huge cement wall with a little door in it,” Thomas said. “But when I started playing for the Bruins, they were barely a playoff team.
“… And so to go from there to winning the cup in 2011 …. To see the fan energy build and the interest to come back with the Bruins to the level that it has, it did, and still back to that, was part of what I enjoyed about being here. Playing in front of the fans in the early days, where it seemed like there might only be 8,000 people … to my last few years with the Bruins being sold out every game.”
Thomas has enjoyed the fight that he’s seen so far from the 2025-26 Bruins, especially with former teammate Marco Sturm taking over as a first-year NHL bench boss.
But Thomas also doesn’t spend most of his days consuming hockey when he’s not on site at Causeway Street.
“No I don’t,” Thomas said of watching hockey away from the rink. “I watched some. I was thinking about it —, and I really enjoyed playing hockey to the nth degree. But I’m not big on watching.”
For all of the highs that Thomas has achieved in hockey — culminating in a Stanley Cup title in 2011 as the key conduit for the Bruins’ first title in 39 years — the game that Thomas loves has also brought about its fair share of challenges.
After retiring from the NHL following the 2013-14 season, Thomas removed himself from the media and the hockey world in general. When he resurfaced as a member of the United States Hockey Hall of Fame’s Class of 2019, he detailed the brain damage from his playing career that derailed his life long after he stopped his final puck in net.
A year after his retirement, Thomas underwent a brain scan that revealed that two-thirds of his brain was getting less than five percent blood flow. The remaining third was only averaging about 50 percent blood flow.
“My rebound effect was like, this wasn’t worth it,” Thomas said of navigating those post-concussion symptoms. “That’s where I was then. Where I am today is past that. I ended up learning so many lessons out of the experience. It brought me tighter with my family. It taught me a value for life and a value for my brain that I’ve never had before. And I have appreciation for everything that I never had before. I don’t regret anything.”
In recent years, Thomas has once again started to ingratiate himself back in the hockey community — helping to rebuild flood-damaged homes in Vermont in 2023 while becoming a more regular face during Bruins alumni gatherings in Boston.
“About 16 months ago, I came through the other side, so to speak,” Thomas told The Athletic in 2021. “As I continued to get better and better, I’m looking for things to be involved in that are interesting. I’m looking to reconnect with friends and acquaintances that I built over my life.”
These days, Thomas doesn’t operate with any second-guesses over his career or the challenges that hockey has presented him over the years.
And while Thomas was quick to brush aside praise over his heroics during that 2011 Cup run (.940 save percentage across 25 games), the two-time Vezina winner’s musings off the past are now rooted in gratitude, rather than regret.
“It’s easy for me to just forget who I was before, so sometimes stuff like this reminds me of what I have done in the past and what I’ve accomplished,” Thomas said. “I don’t spend every day sitting around thinking of what happened in the past, not because it’s a bad thing to do, just because you got to look forward in life, too.”
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