BOSTON \u2013\u2013 Hours before the puck drops at TD Garden, Mikey Eyssimont sits in the media room across the hall from his Boston Bruins stall.<\/p>\n
The forward has his phone open to the New York Times app and is doing crossword puzzles with Robyn Altman, an audio technician for NESN.<\/p>\n
It is one of the routines that gets Eyssimont ready for a game.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Robyn] always has her crosswords out. There is a lot of time before a game. I think it\u2019s just a nice way to get it off your mind for like five or 10 minutes,\u201d Eyssimont said. \u201cI try to do them Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for the New York Times. It is more so just something to do on my phone that is not rotting me away.\u201d\u200b<\/p>\n
Eyssimont is in his fifth season and fifth team in the league, so he has worked on ways to keep himself grounded through the ups and downs of NHL life. The 29-year-old signed a two-year deal with Boston in July after playing for both the Tampa Bay Lightning and Seattle Kraken last season.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u201cI\u2019ve been traded around a lot. I don\u2019t really have many material goods. I sold my home in Tampa and sold it furnished. So I travel pretty light, which is how I like to live,\u201d Eyssimont said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you see a lot of guys, the way that they prepare, there are a lot of things that go into it. I think that I\u2019ve learned, as I\u2019ve gotten older, that instead of adding things in to do to feel better, it\u2019s more important to subtract things from my life. I just try to simplify everything. Clothing-wise, at home-wise \u2013 I just like living pretty simply. Less to think about.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u200bSeptember was another new start for Eyssimont as the Bruins\u2019 training camp opened. After a strong summer of work, it was time to show what he was capable of for a different team. There is excitement, but also, there is pressure. Eyssimont decided to write about what he was feeling.<\/p>\n
He started a personal Substack where he has \u2013 and plans to eventually continue to \u2013 post journals from an NHL player\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u201cI think writing is a nice way for me to organize my thoughts personally, and the people around me \u2013 just like friends \u2013 have been very curious about what it\u2019s like to be in the NHL. Just kind of the road that I am on. They always tell me that people will find that interesting. Things might be mundane or monotonous to you, but that\u2019s interesting to other people. My idea was to give some little insights into that,\u201d Eyssimont said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a guy who is going to make a YouTube channel or do a get ready with me or pack with me for a trip like on a video.\u201d<\/p>\n
Head coach Marco Sturm knew Eyssimont before they both landed in Boston. Eyssimont \u2013 who was a fifth-round pick of the Los Angeles Kings in 2016 \u2013 spent three seasons with their AHL affiliate, the Ontario Reign, after three years of NCAA hockey at St. Cloud State University. Sturm was an assistant coach for the Kings while Eyssimont was in the organization, and became the head coach of the Reign in 2022.<\/p>\n
He, accordingly, was not surprised by Eyssimont\u2019s preparation process off the ice.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u201cI\u2019ve been around him for a little bit, and Mikey does his own thing. He does that kind of stuff,\u201d Sturm said. \u201cEveryone is different, everyone has a different routine to get his mind back in order away from hockey. As long as it works, they can do whatever they want.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eyssimont’s response to adversity was tested during January; he was a healthy scratch for two weeks. He got back in the lineup on Jan. 27 and had three points (two goals, one assist) in the final two games heading into the Olympic break.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON \u2013\u2013 Hours before the puck drops at TD Garden, Mikey Eyssimont sits in the media room across…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-460881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}