NHL player interviews are rarely must-see TV.
Most feature clichés about getting pucks deep, playing a full 60 minutes, and taking things one game at a time. Honesty and bluntness? More like: let’s avoid headlines and not be bigger than the team.
Calgary Flames goaltender Devin Cooley is changing all of that, though, and has taken a different approach. In recent weeks, Cooley, seemingly on a path towards personal enlightenment, has gone viral for his answers, swapping hockey clichés for philosophical musings on life, death, consciousness, and also goaltending.
Cooley’s latest wave of insight began on October 18 during an interview with Sportsnet’s Brendan Parker.
“I felt nothing,” Cooley said minutes after beating the Carolina Hurricanes 3-2. “The problem with me is that I have a lot of fun playing, but when I start having too much fun, it [changes me] from an unconscious goalie to a conscious goalie, and my conscious brain is really bad at playing goalie.
“So I have to let my unconscious brain do the work, because it reacts a lot quicker…Like, don’t think about anything. If you asked me how I made a save, I’d be like, ‘I have no idea.’ Just my unconscious brain does it.”
He later opined to the media, “The past is dead. There’s nothing for you there,” which is both calming and wildly depressing.
Cooley is no stranger to unusual answers: his mantra of “Nothing matters. Nobody cares. We’re all going to die.” garnered attention as far back as the 2023-24 season, when he played for the San Jose Sharks.
Clips from Cooley’s interviews have now traveled outside of the hockey world. He recently appeared on ESPN’s SportsCenter, at one point quipping that a quote from New York Giants quarterback Jameis Winston sounded like “a little bit of religious psychosis.”
Podcaster Joe Rogan discussed Cooley’s mindset on a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience.
“The way he described [his unconsciousnes] was really interesting because I was like, ‘I get that. I understand what he’s saying,’ Rogan, whose intellectual curiosity frequently exceeds his intellectual capacity, said. “Because you get that with everything, like I cannot talk and play pool. If I talk and play pool, I’ll play like s***.”
Cooley’s quotes haven’t gone entirely without detractors — TSN’s Jeff O’Neill argued on OverDrive, “That doesn’t go well when things sour,” but the reaction has largely been positive, and his strategy is clearly paying off.
The 29-year-old backstop, whose inner peace more resembles that of a Buddhist monk, is on a four-game win streak, stopping 9.41 goals above expected over that span (per Natural Stat Trick), and was named the NHL’s Second Star of the Week on Monday.
“I feel completely in control of my mind,” he told Parker in an interview on Sunday, later adding, “Even when I go home, I go home, and I’m not really thinking about much. I’m just kind of reading with my rabbit and kind of hanging out.”
Beyond his unconscious approach to playing in net, Cooley has a long history as one of the NHL’s more entertaining and unusual players, whether it’s taking up college-level math in his spare time, learning to juggle as part of his offseason training, or helping run an Instagram for his pet rabbit, Tito. Cooley even teamed up with charity Parachutes for Pets to create bunny-themed merch featuring some of his best quotes.
So, while Cooley may be trying not to have too much fun in net, he’s making it awfully difficult for everyone else not to have fun watching him. And the Internet now has a new favorite netminder.
