Jonathan's Webstream

Tim Thomas is *right* off my Christmas list now. The Bruins had a White House ceremony today, and I loved President Obama's speech. He's probably not much of a hockey fan (basketball fans usually aren't) but he is a gracious speaker and seemed to be having fun, right down to saying he knows everyone was "wicked happy" to be there. Then he rattled off the championships from the area and said "enough already Boston!". He had some fun with it, going so far as to call Marchand by his "Little Ball Of Hate" nickname, and it was really cool. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves tremendously.

Except Tim Thomas, who boycotted the event because he feels that government is "out of control". What an idiot. As some have said, it's his "right" to not go if he doesn't want to. But it is also *my* right to call him out for a selfish boob, who stood up his teammates for a big occasion to make a political, selfish point. To show him how it is done, I'm sure that if/when his teammates are asked about it, they will all defend his "right" and back him up, just like he should have done when they went to the White House. Put out a statement afterwards if you must, but, as Kevin Paul Dupont said, "Win as team. Lose as team. When team is honored, attend as a teammate."

Teams are funny things. I *love* being a member of a team. And it really has to be a sports team - business can try to coopt the team ethic, but you have to have black and white wins and losses to really pull a team together. It's been a while since I've been on a real team, but once a year, I pull together a group of the guys I play hockey with and we enter a team into a local tournament. And it is an intense 3 to 4 games, played over just a couple days. So much so, that I am usually too burned out to play goal come our regular morning skate.

And I love it. Even just for that short period of time, the "team" pulls together. Some are just friends of friends, so we just see once a year for this tournament, but it doesn't take long for the team to gel and we have a blast. And as a goalie, I am a unique kind of teammate. Probably akin to a pitcher in baseball or a kicker(!) in football, from the outside we get more share of the blame and more credit than we deserve. But the teammates just know how it works, and how the dynamic works and they would never ever say anything bad to me as a teammate, no matter how much I screwed up. And that's the thing with goalies, pitchers, kickers and the like - when you screw up, it is usually pretty major and pretty obvious. And your teammates recognize this, knowing that they'll screw up and you'll bail them out and vice versa, despite how it might look on the outside. And I really dig that kind of responsibility and ownership.

So the Bruins will have Thomas' back but I pretty sure they also wish, deep down inside, that he had just gone along with the flow and hadn't been, as my teammates will sometimes rib me, a "fuckin' goalie". Because we are different, let me tell you!

Related articles

• Tim Thomas Skips White House Visit Due To Ideological Differences With Obama Administration (tracking.si.com)
• You: Boston Bruins' Tim Thomas Wrong in Not Attending White House Ceremony (bleacherreport.com)
• Bruins To Meet President Obama At White House (boston.cbslocal.com)