Like the rest of us, Charlie Coyle is doing whatever he can to fight through this new Groundhog Day existence of ours.

The Bruins’ centerman got into the Netflix show “Ozark.” He’s playing miniputt games in his Boston home. He’s overcoming his aversion to cooking and helping out his girlfriend, Danielle, with meal preparation (“I make a mean Caesar salad”). He’s practicing his stick-handling in the house. And Coyle’s become one of many NHL devotees of the Peloton bike as he tries to keep up his cardio fitness.

He’s trying to stay in shape, not just because that’s what professional athletes do, but because he knows that if the NHL resumes play, he and his brethren won’t be allowed the same kind of training run-up for a new season, which usually entails a month of late-summer skating, then a three-week training camp.

But while he’s trying to do whatever he can to prepare for the resumption of the season and/or playoffs – if it can even happen with the coronavirus outbreak – Coyle is still trying to wrap his head around what that may look like.

“We’ve never been through anything like this so it’s kind of bizarre. It seems like everything’s up in the air. You don’t know what to expect, but I know we’re going to try and finish this thing off and the league’s going to do everything in their power to do that. But, what’s the format going to look like? What can we accomplish? I don’t know,” said Coyle on a Zoom conference with reporters on Wednesday.

“I just hope we can get back to it and get past this thing and everyone’s healthy, that’s the most important thing obviously. But as far as the league goes, I would love to finish this thing off. I know a lot of guys would love to as well. It would just be different playing all the way into the summertime, late summer, August, but that’s where we’re at. Those are the cards we’ve been dealt.”

Whatever kind of playoff the league can muster, it’s hard to imagine that it would have much of a real connection to the 2019-20 season, especially for the Bruins. Yes, the standings will still matter if play resumes, and the Bruins don’t have to worry about whether they’d be in the “postseason,” having led the league by a wide margin at the time of the shutdown.

But if the most-discussed form of a playoff – played at a neutral sight, with no spectators – comes to fruition, what the Bruins were well on their way to earning (namely home-ice and home-crowd advantage throughout) will essentially be voided.

Like most players, Coyle wants to get back on the ice, no matter how unusual the circumstance, provided it is deemed safe and healthy for everyone involved. But it would be weird to play in an empty arena, said Coyle.

“It’s very bizarre to think about, to play a meaningful game with no fans in there. It’s almost like a practice atmosphere. I don’t know what it would be like. I’ve never played an NHL game when there was no one there. It would be a new experience,” said Coyle. “If that’s what it would come down to, then yeah, that’s what we have to do. A perfect scenario would be to have our fans in there and cheering us on because we love playing in front of them and they bring so much to our game and our team, just the atmosphere of it all, especially playoff time. There’s nothing like it. It wouldn’t be the same at all.”

No aspect of life is normal these days – including being able to mourn the loss of a loved one during this time of social distancing. That hit Coyle hard three weeks ago when his paternal grandmother, Gail Coyle, passed away at the age of 81.

“It was kind of an awkward thing trying to get everyone together with people trying to pay their respects, that was kind of tough. It was a tough one, but she lived a great life and we have a lot of memories with her. I’m just obviously sad to see her go,” said Coyle. “My other grandmother (Mary Kelly), she’s 91 now and she’s indoors living with my aunt. It kills her not being able to get out because she’s always on the go and always active. But she’s doing well and staying healthy, which is great.”

Coyle – a Weymouth, Massachusetts native who signed a six-year, $31.5 million contract extension with the Bruins in November – has embraced playing in Boston. And on the seventh anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, he gave a shoutout to his hometown as it, like the rest of the world, grapples with this new formidable, invisible foe.

“You remember that day and everyone affected by it. Seeing everyone come together makes you very proud to be from this area … with Boston Strong, that whole aspect, it makes you want to keep living by that with what we’re going through now with another obstacle,” said Coyle. “We have to come together and do our part to get past this and overcome this, so I think in these hard times, it helps to bring everyone together and work towards a common goal and we all know what that is right now.”

Copy the Story Link

« Previous

Krug hoping Bruins are still in his short-term and long-term future

Next »

Cassidy not worried about Bruins’ age