Drance: In emotional moment, Brock Boeser gives Canucks fans a glimpse into his heavy heart

Vancouver Canucks star forward Brock Boeser needed a moment to compose himself on Sunday morning. So did his teammates and close friends Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson, who were positioned to his left at the podium for season ending media availabilities.

Right off the top of the club’s second group of panelists, Boeser was asked a question about what he made of his season.

“It was a tough year,” Boeser said, going on to discuss his goal scoring and his game and his confidence levels.

The usual stuff.

Then he added, and his voice dropped tellingly, “There were some things away from the rink that were tough this year, so… It was definitely a challenging year.”

The follow up from Postmedia’s Ben Kuzma was directly about hockey, but Boeser needed a moment to compose himself before answering. He tried to get back to hockey and talk about his 200-foot game, but it was apparent that his head and heart were elsewhere.

Then Boeser was asked directly about his heavy heart. And about his father, Duke Boeser.

“It was really hard,” Boeser said, visibly fighting back tears as Hughes tried to interject with, “Next question.”

“Sorry,” Brock said, fighting back tears and cutting off his teammates who were trying to move the availability along as a kindness to their teammate.

“No, I can answer it,” Boeser said. “He has pretty bad dementia right now, it’s onset and it’s gotten pretty bad this year. It’s really hit me hard.”

Boeser’s understandable emotional reaction occurred in public, and for many fans and media members watching the availability, this was their first introduction to a situation that Brock and his family have been working through for months. The truth is that Boeser has worked through many of these moments privately of late.

Duke has battled significant and well-publicized health issues in recent years. The family has tended to be open to a supportive fan base about Duke’s health, which was touch and go at times, particularly during the 2019 offseason.

Over the past eight months, however, Duke’s health has rapidly declined. He’s now in an advanced stage of Parkinson’s disease dementia, the family confirmed to The Athletic on Sunday, providing us with permission to publish these details.

It’s been an arduous time for Brock and the family, of course, and Brock has wanted to keep the matter of his father’s health private.

More than anything, the subject is just too heavy, too emotional for him to want to discuss publicly at any length, as Brock’s brief, vulnerable season ending media availability provided a window into on Sunday morning.

Internally, the club has been aware of the situation. Canucks head coach Bruce Boudreau took Brock aside when he became aware of the severity of the situation a few months ago, and told Brock that the club would be supportive of whatever the talented right winger required, including being absent for a run of games or practices.

That didn’t happen, of course, but the team did accommodate the Boeser family situation when the club traveled through Minnesota on a road trip in late March, on the second leg of back-to-back games.

The schedule only called for the club to spend about 21 hours in St. Paul, which didn’t provide Brock with enough time to check in with his family the way he would’ve liked, though Duke was able to attend the game — a Vancouver overtime loss to the Minnesota Wild.

It was deeply meaningful for Brock and his family that Duke was able to be there. But Duke’s health was in rapid decline. On the day of the game, he went off of his cancer medication.

In the weeks leading up to the contest, there’d been real concern within the family that Brock wouldn’t get the opportunity to play in front of his father again.

He did, though. The family was at the Xcel Energy Centre that evening in a suite and posed for pictures postgame. They soaked in every moment. Together.

Then postgame, as Brock’s teammates loaded onto the bus to travel to Dallas, Brock remained behind in Minnesota for the evening. The next day, a team day off in Dallas, Boeser was able to put in time with his family before flying to rejoin the club ahead of their next game.

By the time the club passed back through Minnesota last week, Duke was unable to attend the game itself — although Brock’s mother, father and a nurse attended morning skate.

Brock’s on-ice performance and his unique contract situation has been on the tip of tongues in this hockey market throughout this season. Behind the scenes of an uneven campaign in which he nonetheless scored 23 goals and produced at his customary 30-goals-per-82-game pace in the second half of the year, there was a young man who has dealt with a ton of real life adversity coping as best he could with the unthinkable.

With the season at an end and his media obligations complete, Brock will return home to Minnesota in the next couple of days to put in time with Duke and his family.

On Sunday, Brock provided fans and media with a glimpse into the gravity of what he and his family have been abiding in private.

He also gave us a weighty reminder that in this era of player props and fantasy hockey and hockey discussions grounded in cap allocation and contract efficiency, the players we watch and cover and root for on a nightly basis in the NHL are real people.

(Photo: Derek Cain / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)