Brock Boeser bursts into tears and leaves press conference

This week, footage of Brock Boeser speaking about his dad’s health has gone viral. That’s because when he answered the question on his father’s condition, the Vancouver Canucks forward teared up and left the team’s end of season press conference.

After answering questions on the Canucks’ season and future, Boeser was asked about “challenges on the home front”.

“Yeah, to say the least, it’s really hard,” Boeser replied.

The follow up question came specifically about his father Duke’s health. Boeser’s father suffers from Parkison’s, cancer and dementia and even sustained a brain injury in a car accident.

Boeser teared up and teammate Quinn Hughes piped up “next question” to protect his buddy. But Boeser decided to respond before breaking down.

“He’s not doing well,” Boeser said through tears. “He has pretty bad dementia right now. It’s onset, and he’s had it pretty bad this year. It’s really hit me hard.”

This is tough to watch:

Boeser’s agent Ben Hankinson later told Don Taylor and Rick Dhaliwal that he believes it is important that his client lets it out and talks about it.

“I think it was probably a good thing, believe it or not, for Brock to go through that and just let it out, because he doesn’t say anything to me, his mom, his brother, his sister, his dad,” Hankinson said. “I think Brock was a little rattled, even after, thinking he screwed up and was embarrassed, but in today’s day and age, with everything out there, it’s just good for him to emotionally go through that and let people see what the average person deals with. Just because he’s a great hockey player doesn’t make it any different.”

Here at HF, we send our support to Boeser and his family.