“My conscious brain is really bad at playing goalie.”

That is the sentence that broke containment. It belongs to Devin Cooley, the 29-year-old Calgary Flames goaltender who has spent the past ten days bouncing around corners of the internet that normally pay no attention to hockey in October.

The latest wave started on 18 October, after Calgary edged the Carolina Hurricanes 3-2. Asked by Sportsnet’s Brendan Parker how he keeps his head still in a shootout, Cooley explained that having too much fun flips him from an “unconscious” goalie to a conscious one. The clip spread. Fans then dug out his older mantra from his season with the San Jose Sharks: “Nothing matters. Nobody cares. We’re all going to die.”

A mantra, not a worldview

Cooley has described it as a tool, not a creed.

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“You really have to ground yourself. So I just like, I think I’ve said this before, but I just go like, ‘Nothing matters, nobody cares, we’re all gonna die.’ And I just, like, say that over and over and over again so that way, I don’t get too excited,” he told Defector.

Joe Rogan picked up the Carolina clip on The Joe Rogan Experience last week with guest Bill Thompson.

“This guy is very intelligent. I don’t know his name, I don’t follow hockey unfortunately,” Rogan said on the podcast, before dwelling at length on Cooley’s point about keeping conscious thought out of the net.

ESPN then put Cooley on a virtual SportsCenter segment and handed him clips of other athlete interviews to react to. Shown NFL quarterback Jameis Winston talking about his faith, Cooley diagnosed “a little bit of religious psychosis” and moved on, according to Daily Hive.

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Tito, a bunny with an Instagram

Off the ice, there is a rabbit. Cooley keeps an Instagram account for his pet bunny Tito and has worked with Calgary charity Parachutes for Pets on merchandise carrying his nihilist slogans.

The run of form behind the viral run is real too. Cooley is 4-2-0 with a .915 save percentage, and the NHL named him Second Star of the Week for the seven days ending 26 October.

Hot run interrupted in Edmonton

The good run was interrupted on Wednesday night at Rogers Place. Cooley left Calgary’s 4-0 defeat to the Edmonton Oilers after the first period with a lower-body injury, sustained in a collision with Oilers forward Colton Dach with 12 seconds left in the frame. Starter Dustin Wolf finished the game. Head coach Ryan Huska is expected to give an update on Cooley’s status on Thursday.

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