Zdeno Chara embraces his new way to communicate
"I felt that if I were to ever go down that road, I would like to make it count."
Bruins fans scrolling through their Instagram feed last week likely spotted an encouraging development from a familiar, albeit recently absent, face.
Defenseman Zdeno Chara — who suffered a left MCL injury against the Colorado Avalanche on Nov. 14 — shared a slo-mo video of himself wearing a weighted vest while engaging in a strength exercise at Warrior Ice Arena. Chara has missed the Bruins’ last 16 games, though he is expected to return to practice Wednesday.
“With great work and help from our entire Bruins Medical and Rehabilitation staff, we are making progress every day,’’ he wrote in the caption. “Eager to be back at full strength and playing.’’
Instagram is a relatively new endeavor for the 41-year-old captain, who started his account in January. Since joining the photo- and video-sharing social media platform, he has only further endeared himself to fans via detailed captions accompanying imagery from various aspects of his professional and personal life.
After the Tampa Bay Lightning eliminated the Bruins from last year’s postseason, for example, Chara uploaded an aerial shot of him on the ice with a lengthy note reflecting on the team’s performance. And in the weeks following his wife’s and daughter’s shared birthday, April 27, he posted a photo of the trio enjoying a meal at Top of the Hub. (His two-year-old twin boys apparently didn’t get the invite.)
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Other documented highlights include meeting retired American tennis player Andy Roddick at Harvard Business School, straining potato dumplings at Kokava Ranch in his native country of Slovakia, and dressing up as a crow for Halloween. Intermingled are clips of him polishing his stick skills and logging squat reps in the gym.
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Although he now comes off as a seasoned pro, updating his 108,000 followers an average of 10-plus times per month, Chara wasn’t always too keen on using Instagram or any form of social media.
“I was kind of on the skeptical side,’’ he said. “Sometimes I felt like people were posting very unnecessary things, just posting things that you kind of wonder why that can be so important? It kind of turned me off a little bit.’’
As Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube started becoming more ubiquitous in sports, however, Chara said he came around to the idea of launching his own account, realizing that his posts could be harnessed as a vehicle for communication and inspiration.
“I felt that if I were to ever go down that road, I would like to make it count,’’ he said. “You slowly start seeing how [social media] can be very beneficial and helpful to others. That’s what kind of got me into it. You can really reach out to any fan or any person who is interested in a matter of seconds. It’s not always easy to be following newspapers or interviews or TV or games, but on Instagram, in short messages, you can reach out to people — thousands of people — in a matter of seconds.’’
From informing fans about his injury recovery to offering an inside look at his family activities, Chara said he has found Instagram to be a useful tool in connecting with his fans. Unlike Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s account, there’s very little, if any, sponsored content, product promotion, or carefully designed graphics on Chara’s page. Instead, he’s elected to candidly open a small window into his life — a decision that’s appears to have been received well by Boston sports fans.
Chara said he’ll occasionally read through the comments if he has time, and he even makes a concerted effort to translate each caption into Slovakian so that those abroad can interpret his messages, too. Still, he’s cautious with the type of content he shares publicly.
“You want to make sure you don’t cross the line where you’re exposing yourself too much,’’ he said. “I want to make sure I don’t get caught up with, ‘This is me,’ or give up too much privacy. You still want to have some boundaries, and there’s a reason for that.’’
When writing his captions and selecting which photos to upload, Chara said the decision-making process is focused on the audience, rather than himself. One of his primary goals is to resonate with “different tribes of people with different interests.’’
“It’s not as much what I think of it, but I try to think what that meant for that person next door, next country, next town — would that be helpful for them?’’ he said. “Would that be motivating? Would that be something they’re happy to see? You can have obviously different feelings and different views, but you want to make sure someone outside of your thinking understands it as well.’’
As the three-time First Team All-Star works his way back to the ice, Chara expressed no plans to curtail his usage. He noted social media has not been a source of distraction or negativity in his experience.
“Everybody has their choice to do whatever they want with it,’’ he said. “I choose to do what I’m doing, and hopefully, it’s something that helps people, inspires people, and motivates people.’’
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General manager Don Sweeney announced Tuesday the Bruins placed forward Gemel Smith on waivers and assigned defenseman Jeremy Lauzon to Providence. Smith, who was claimed off waivers from the Dallas Stars earlier in December, skated in just three games with the Bruins this season (0-0—0).
