There is only one NHL player who’s survived a cheetah attack, occasionally loses a few large snakes and once convinced Canadian customs to let through a collection of knives.
There is only one Brent Burns.
Now 40 years old, Burns signed a one-year contract with the Avalanche in July. He’s still chasing his dream to win the Stanley Cup.
Burns is also still the same guy he has always been — the most interesting man in the NHL — as he enters his 22nd season. He’s posed naked on the cover of ESPN The Magazine. He had a two-episode run as a guest star on the show “Vikings.” He hasn’t missed a game since 2013, and his iron man streak can reach 1,000 this season.
“If I remember correctly, he looked a lot different,” former San Jose Sharks captain Logan Couture, who played with Burns for 11 years, said about the first meeting him. “He still had his teeth. I think maybe he got those knocked out the first year he was with us. It was just his infectious personality. He never changed from then until now.
“He’s big. He’s loud. He’s bubbly. He lights up the room. He fit in perfectly with our group.”
The Avs hope he’s a perfect fit in Denver, too. Burns remains a mountain of a man, with a tattoo-covered, chiseled physique, the missing teeth and a beard as untamed as his persona.
He also remains a defenseman who can log a lot of minutes and play in all situations. Burns is a Norris Trophy winner and future Hockey Hall of Famer, but he won’t need to be a superstar in Colorado. The Avs hope he can improve the depth of the defense corps, adding size, toughness and skill.
What he brings off the ice can help, too.
“He’s definitely a great storyteller,” Avs star Nathan MacKinnon said. “We hear about his ranch and all those different animals. It’s crazy. His lifestyle is a little different than mine, but he’s a great personality to have. He seems like an awesome guy. Loves hockey so much. At his age, it’s pretty cool – his 22nd season.
“Not many teams have the luxury of having someone like him.”
‘That one definitely blew my mind’
Burns, his wife, Susan, and their kids have a 420-acre ranch in Texas. Double B’s Top Shelf Ranch is home to a variety of animals, including ones typically found in Africa and India, such as wildebeests, zebras and atlas deer. When the Sharks celebrated Burns’ 1,000th NHL game, they gifted him a pair of antelope.
Before Texas, the family had what the CBC once dubbed “Burns Zoo” in Minnesota. That was a different type of zoo. It featured reptiles and snakes. Lots of snakes.
“He told me about this in my first or second year, but he had a collection of snakes at his house in Minnesota,” Couture said. “Like, hundreds of them, because he used to breed them and sell these rare, special breeds of snakes. And they’d feed them like, big rats or even small rabbits. So, one day I asked him, ‘Hey, do they ever get out?’ And he goes, ‘Oh yeah, they get out. A couple of times we’ve lost snakes in our house for like two or three weeks.’ I guess they would just find small, dark places and just curl up.
“His kids were young back then, and I was like, ‘Holy (crap), weren’t you ever worried about it?’ And he was just like, ‘Nah, the snakes we have are afraid of humans.’ That one definitely blew my mind.”
Burns has loved animals his entire life. He’s used the ranch to teach his kids about hunting and harvesting animals, growing vegetables and eating clean, healthy foods.
It also led to him potentially becoming the first NHL player to miss a game because of a cheetah attack. As the story goes, Burns, Joe Thornton and Colin White were at an animal sanctuary and Burns’ cashmere sweater caused the typically docile cheetah to bite him in the ribcage.
Just another wild tale to tell.
“He’s a magnetic personality, right?” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “He loves the game of hockey. He loves being around the guys, being around the rink. He’s a really fun guy. I walked into the practice facility in the summertime, and he’s already there. His family’s already settled.
“There’s 5-6 guys talking to him over by the coffee machine. Half hour later, I go in and he’s talking with five or six other guys holding court over by the squat rack. Then 20 minutes later, I walk by, he’s talking to another five, six guys in the hallway, and they’re all laughing. So I love the personality that he brings to our team, the leadership. He’s a guy who’s been around. He’s hungry to win.”
‘Jesus. That’s pretty wild.’
Burns’ backpack is the most talked-about accessory in the NHL.
It’s a huge, military-style rucksack that goes with him everywhere. The contents inside his backpack have taken on almost a mythical quality.
“He’s got his rollers in there. He brings a bunch of his stuff for his body, vitamins and everything,” Couture said. “I think he had his own special pillow at one point. And, of course, if we were staying in a nice hotel or at a nice rink where they would give us smart water or like Fiji water, he’d stuff like 25 or 30 bottles of it in his bag for his personal use. Other guys would be like, ‘Burnzie, your back has to be killing you from from all those water bottles.’ ”
Burns’ love of coffee is also well known. He doesn’t go anywhere without all of the ingredients to create his own special brew.
“He’d have three or four different kinds with him,” Couture said. “He had his MCT oil and collagen and all this other stuff he would mix in there. He had this special kind of butter he would bring. He’d make coffee in the mornings, and he’d save some for me.”
That’s all relatively normal stuff.
Then there were the knives.
“He had like a six-inch dagger that he would use to cut the hockey tape off his sticks in between periods,” Couture said. “The first time I saw it, I was like, ‘Jesus. That’s pretty wild.’
“He used to always travel with his knives. There was one time when we were in Canada and had to clear customs. A lot of times, we don’t have to put our bags through the scanners, but I remember the one time he was freaking out at our PR people because they didn’t tell him we would have to clear through regular customs, and he had his knives in there. They had to figure out a way to get it through security, and somehow they did.”
‘No days off’
Burns hasn’t played 1,497 regular-season games, plus another 135 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, just because of his talent or personality. He has crafted a career that spans more than two decades because he’s always been one of the most invested NHL players in his offseason training, game-to-game recovery and overall fitness.
It’s how he’s been able to play huge minutes every night throughout his 30s. It’s how he was able to move back and forth between forward and defense earlier in his career and excel at both.
“No days off. For him and Jumbo (Thornton), that was their attitude,” Couture said. “They used to joke and say, ‘No days off until you’re 30.’ Then it turned into, ‘no days off until you’re 35.’ They would show up every day to get a sweat in. When you’re a younger player and you see these guys in their 30s showing up at the rink every day, busting their asses to try and get better, I mean, you’ve got to do it as well.
“Anything that’s out there that he thinks can help him play longer, play better, he’s going to try it.”
Burns reached the Stanley Cup Final with the Sharks in 2016. He won the Norris Trophy in 2017.
He’s won the World Cup of Hockey and an IIHF World Championship with Canada. The Stanley Cup is the last thing left off the resume. Like Thornton, he had to leave San Jose to keep chasing it.
After three years with the Carolina Hurricanes, Burns finally got to experience something else for the first time in his career: Hitting the free agent market on July 1.
“I wanted to go to a place where you have a chance to win,” Burns said. “This group has that. It’s a special group with special players. So there’s a lot of reasons to come here. From what I’ve seen from the last five weeks, it’s a really, really great city. I love waking up with the mountain views.
“The first time I see a wild elk will be pretty nice, too. I haven’t seen one yet.”
There are plenty of them here, and he’s excited to use an off day to go find them. He does have a couple of former teammates from his days in Raleigh, as well — Jack Drury and Martin Necas.
And there’s still a dream to chase, something the Avs hope to help him out with.
“I didn’t talk to them. Actually, I probably should have,” Burns said about his free-agent process. “I didn’t go to Harvard like Jack, so I didn’t really think that process through. I’ve been here enough to know this city was great. There’s a lot of unknowns, but it’s more about the fit and the group.
“There’s obvious things that I bring – work ethic, love of the game, hopefully some laughter, some fun at the rink. I still think I can play, too. … I still love being at the rink every day and working.”