Hockey fans know TJ Oshie played an intense game for 16 seasons in the NHL, but even when there’s nothing at stake, he remains fiery and competitive.
On an episode of the “Spittin’ Chiclets” podcast released Tuesday, the recently retired Washington Capitals winger described a time he got a little too heated with Vancouver Canucks star Brock Boeser during a pickup game in Minnesota.
“I mean, in summer in the offseason and stuff, I would have fun, I would let guys do their thing unless we were losing and if we were losing, I just like absolutely reverse hitting, turn it on,” Oshie described of his style of play during casual games. “I think one time we were out skating with Brock Boeser and he was cherry-picking the whole day and we had a tough workout. You know those workouts where you’re drained, you’re in a bad mood, you gotta go skate. It’s August, you feel out of shape and you got things coming up and we got a pretty heated game and [Boeser] got like three or four breakaways and his last one from across the ice, I chuck my stick – as in like slide it on the ice – [to] knock the puck out and just be like, ‘Hey, stop doing that.’
“I let it go a little high, almost like a golf club throw [and it hit him] square across the side of his head. And he thought we were gonna fight and I had to play it off like I meant to do it, I couldn’t be like, ‘Oh, oh sorry.’ Right? And so he went to the bench and changed and I just skated around and dropped some profanities and told him to stop cherry-picking… Sometimes I do get a little heated up out there.”
Boeser, 28, is a native of Burnsville, Minnesota – a southern suburb of the Twin Cities – and shares some striking commonalities with Oshie besides both being sons of the Gopher State. The pair attended and played for the University of North Dakota (Oshie from 2004-07 and Boeser from 2015-17) and, sadly, their fathers both suffered from types of Dementia.
Oshie’s father, Tim, passed away in May 2021 after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer’s Disease, something the 38-year-old has been open and vocal about. He even debuted a documentary about his father at a DC film festival in June.
Boeser’s dad, Duke, passed away in May 2022. On top of fighting Dementia, he was also diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2010.
Despite the rough misunderstanding, Oshie has nothing but respect for his fellow Minnesotan.
“He’s just so nice. Just such a nice guy,” he told the podcast. “He wants to have fun out there and score some goals.”
Oshie and his family moved back to the Land of 10,000 Lakes this summer after the 2018 Stanley Cup champion announced his retirement from the NHL due to chronic back pain. He explained how his treatment journey has him feeling “good enough to be a normal human being” but he’s not quite sure if he’ll jump back on the ice for another pickup game any time soon.
“I haven’t skated since [the] playoffs, when we got swept by New York in ’24, I just haven’t skated [because of] my back. [I] wasn’t in any position to go on the ice at all,” he said. “Now I could probably maybe go for a little twirl… So I’m gonna try to work my body back into it and then who knows, maybe I’ll step on the ice and give it a go.”