The most recent message Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas posted to Facebook, on Wednesday, has yielded 942 likes, 341 comments, 206 shares, and zero explanations.
Pressed by the media following Thursday’s practice, Thomas refused to address his intentions by this public post on his Facebook wall:
I Stand with the Catholics in the fight for Religious Freedom.
“In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
— by Martin Niemöller, prominent German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor, best known as the author of the poem First they came….
“That’s my personal life,” Thomas said while addressing a scrum in front of his stall at Ristuccia Arena. “It has absolutely nothing to do with the Bruins or hockey. I’m going to use my right to remain silent.”
One reporter reminded Thomas that Facebook was a public forum. The six images atop Thomas’s Facebook wall are all hockey-related, his profile picture a shot of him hoisting the Stanley Cup.
“You have the right to ask the question, but I have the right to not answer the question,” said Thomas.
“This is my job,” he added. “Facebook is my personal life. That’s why. If you guys don’t understand the difference between an individual and what they do as a job, or an athlete and his personal life, then I think there’s a problem.
“I don’t think that when you become an athlete, that you sign away your right to be an individual and to have your own views and to be able to post something on Facebook if you’d like.”
Thomas first made noise for his personal views when he decided not to attend the Bruins’ congratulatory ceremony at the White House on Jan. 23. He then used Facebook to explain his absence from the event, hosted by President Obama.
“From our owner to management to coaches and players, I don’t think I’ve heard anybody support his opinions,” Bruins coach Claude Julien told the press after Thomas spoke on Thursday. “But I’ve heard everybody say we support him as a player, and we do.
“We’ve got good team chemistry in that dressing room,” Julien continued. “We don’t mix politics with our hockey team, and that continues to happen . . . I assure you that there’s no issues in the dressing room. There never will be.”
