Hockey players are too humble — or maybe just too programmed — to say anything meaningful during intermission interviews. That’s just how they are. Occasionally, we get glimpses of their real personalities through mic’d-up moments, whether it’s the chirping one another, raw emotion, and unfiltered reactions, but all of that vanishes once the cameras are on between periods.
And Pat McAfee has taken notice.
“Hockey is just a ‘Do it for the lads; do it for the team. We’re trying really hard. We got to execute.’ Like, the most boring interview every time,” said McAfee on his The Pat McAfee Show on Friday. “Especially the in-between period stuff. Like, I appreciate the commentators and the analysts trying to get stuff; there’s nothing ever coming. Not one time.”
He compared it to the short-lived pre-kickoff interviews the NFL experimented with, noting that while a few personalities, like Jameis Winston, managed to deliver something entertaining, hockey players never let their guard down.
“In hockey, there’s nothing coming out of any of those [interviews] because they feel like they’re a distraction to their team, or they’re like a ‘me’ guy, McAfee added. “And since they were little tiny kids — literally waking up at 4 a.m. just (*whistles*) skating the ice, they’re being told ‘This ain’t about you; this about everybody else.'”
That ingrained mentality drains the life out of intermission interviews, but off-camera hockey players can be some of the funniest, most entertaining personalities in sports. Just look at the recent mic’d-up moment between Ryan Strome and Tom Wilson.
“I’m not that stupid.”
A mic’d up Stromer let his buddy Tom Wilson off easy last night 😆#FlyTogether | @strome18 pic.twitter.com/X0RSNZv2HB
— Anaheim Ducks (@AnaheimDucks) March 12, 2025
McAfee believes that mindset is a “detriment” to the sport but made it clear that hockey players themselves are anything but boring.
“They are f*cking awesome,” he said.
“The best comparison would be: every hockey player is an offensive lineman,” producer/co-host Boston Connor replied. “None of them want to say anything, and when they do get asked questions, it’s almost like an insult that they’re getting asked a question about themselves and not the entire unit.”
Bingo.
And that’s the paradox of hockey culture — players with electric personalities on the ice, shackled by a mindset that discourages individuality off of it. The game thrives on speed, skill and a lot of chaos, yet the intermission interviews remain lifeless.
Maybe that’s just how it’ll always be.
But every now and then, when the mics catch them in the wild, we get a glimpse of what we’re missing.
