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Former Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas made his first public appearance since walking away from hockey in 2014, and he fought back tears as he described the brain damage he has endured after sustaining a concussion in his final NHL season.

"I couldn't communicate with anybody for a few years," Thomas told reporters on Thursday, ahead of his induction into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame. "I didn't call my dad. I didn't talk to anybody. There was a time period, yeah, where I hated the game, so to speak. I didn't sit there and [say] 'I hate it.' My rebound effect was like, this wasn't worth it."

Thomas said that in a December 2013 game with the Panthers, he sustained a concussion "that changed my life."

"I woke up the next morning after it and I couldn't decide what I wanted to eat, where I wanted to go," Thomas said. "I couldn't plan a schedule. I survived following the team schedule the rest of the year and just made it through that season."

"On the ice, I was able to be like 97 percent maybe, 95 percent of what I was before, but off the ice, like I said, I still can't choose," Thomas said. "I'm so much better, but I wake up every day and basically I have to reorder everything in my mind for the first couple hours of the day and then make a list and try to make some choices to get some stuff done."

"I didn't want to talk about this," he said. "I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to tell the world this stuff. Not till I felt ready, and I didn't feel ready yet. But here I am."

Thomas dropped the puck for the Bruins-Capitals game on Wednesday night and said it was the first NHL game he had attended since retiring.

"I couldn't follow the game anymore," Thomas said. "My brain wasn't functioning well enough to be able to keep up with the game, so I sat out in the woods for a few years. I didn't watch much hockey. There's not much TV out there."

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/...age-concussion