New Favourite Hockey Player
It was a response to an interview question that made goalie Devin Cooley, of the Calgary Flames, my new favourite hockey player.
The query wasn’t even all that unusual. How does the backup goalie stay calm in net, during the game?
Cooley’s response was “…Nothing matters. Nobody cares. We’re all gonna die.’ I just say that over and over and over again so that way, I don’t get too excited.”
I don’t know whether Cooley has ever studied philosophy, but that’s a mix of nihilism and existentialism, put to service in sports psychology.
It’s not even that I agree with Cooley, on a strictly philosophical level – except for the “we’re all gonna die” bit, which is not especially controversial.
Nihilists would say “nothing matters,” which they would relate to the fact that “we’re all gonna die.” That’s really not a headspace that I find especially useful in the long term, but it’s a headspace most of us occupy for a while. I’m not interested in debating the validity of that, at the moment.
Existentialists would say “nothing matters – except the moment in which we’re living right now.” It is the fact that we’re all going to die that lends a sense of urgency to the moment; like all commodities, time is limited, and therefore is valuable – is, in fact, the most valuable commodity. Existentialists believe that we as individuals all have to define our own sense of meaning.
Christian existentialists (yes, these exist,) would define eternal value as a combination of meaningful moments that are strung together across time; that it’s not time itself that matters, but time redefined as moments of meaning. And meaning, they might contend (depending on who you’re talking to), is a matter of moments of authentic human relationship – so there’s a social reality there as well. So it’s certainly not – for them – a situation wrapped up in “nobody cares.”
Anyway, although as an overall philosophy to live by, I have some qualms about Cooley’s response – I think it’s a pretty awesome response. Because that, as a way to calm yourself down in a tough situation, totally encapsulates a person’s position. Hockey is a sport – it has meaning for those who play and those who enjoy it, but it is not all life. A goaltender is important in the context of a hockey game, but not more important than the team or more important than everything else that is going on in the world. And, when the game is over, life goes on… until it doesn’t. So, Cooley’s response to pressure, as a succinct personal mantra to re-establish perspective in moments when all eyes are on one millisecond’s interplay that represents victory or defeat – that’s pretty awesome, in my books.
