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Goofy Burns is all business about his craft
- Updated: June 2, 2016
1:31 PM ET
Brent Burns obsesses over things. He just does. It’s part of what makes him Brent Burns.
You may have heard about the San Jose Sharks defenseman’s collection of snakes and reptiles — a menagerie that former teammate Wes Walz had to stop taking his kids to see when Burns casually mentioned an unaccounted-for boa constrictor.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
When Burns, 31, gets into things, he goes all in.
Like his obsession with pirates, one he shares with his 4-year-old son, Jagger. Burns had a suit custom-designed so that the skull-and-bones material perfectly matched his skull-and-bone cufflinks. One of the pendants on the silver chain he frequently wears around his neck is another nod to his love of all things piratical.
There’s also his obsession with tattoos, one that started when the Barrie, Ontario, native was 11 years old and got a hockey stick with a Canadian flag inked on his right arm. He was so proud of that one that he stood up on the bench in the dressing room before a youth hockey practice and shouted to his coach, Jari Byrski, to let him show it off.
“He takes his shirt off and goes, ‘I love it!'” said Byrski, who has serves as Burns’ skills coach since the defenseman was seven or eight years old and still works with him each offseason. “I thought, ‘This kid is just unbelievable. He’s going places.”
There was his obsession with soccer, which led him to wear futbol jerseys whenever he wasn’t on the ice.
“He loved the fact that Liverpool had that, ‘You never walk alone’ thing,” said former Wild teammate Andrew Brunette.
And his obsession with free stuff — like a tee-shirt from a corporate sponsor, or a rally towel from any hockey game.
Burns arrived at the All-Star Game in Nashville this year a little earlier than his teammates in part to make sure he got all the free stuff possible.
The wild suits, wooly beard and ever-present backpack filled with unconventional treasures are just some of Burns’ idiosyncrasies. Don Smith/NHLI via Getty Images
“He plans around getting the free stuff,” said John Scott, the All-Star Game MVP and a teammate of Burns with both the Wild and the Sharks. “He doesn’t miss an opportunity.”
There’s the obsession with wine. And, at home, he has a room full of guitars.
Or how about this one: Bottled water?
“He’s obsessed with Voss water,” said Sharks teammate Tommy Wingels. “Put that in there.”
Video games. UFC’s Conor McGregor. Camping. Jujitsu. Recovery products. Surfing. Guns. Knapsacks. The military. Mountain biking. Comic books. All were — or are — currently Burns’ passions or preoccupations.
What else?
He once went through a whiskey phase. Not because he liked it, because he actually didn’t. But it fascinated him. Who drinks this stuff? He had to find out, and it became a singular focus for him until he did.
“It’s so harsh. Then you learn about it. You see a guy, and he’s like ‘This is raisons and [stuff]. I’m like, ‘WHAT?’ It burns the [s- -t] out of my mouth,” Burns …
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