How Mike Richter Found New Purpose After Retirement

NEW YORK — Mike Richter, the once-powerful goalie, was wandering around Montreal, unable to process what a McGill University doctor had just told him: that she would not clear him to play hockey. The then 36-year-old had suffered a concussion six months earlier, in November 2002. It was his second in eight months, and the first also left him with a fractured skull from a blow to the head.

Before the injury, Richter believed he had three, four, maybe even five more years of hockey left in him. But that evaluation in Montreal put an end to that hope. He walked to a nearby park and grabbed a bite to eat, digesting the doctor’s words. His world seemed completely different when he walked out of the office than when he walked in. In that moment, the simple act of calling his wife felt too difficult.

“I couldn’t say the words, ‘Hey, it’s over,’” he said.

Richter’s identity was about to change. In September 2003, less than a year after his last injury, he officially retired. The New York Rangers raised his number 35 into the rafters that season. He was the number one goalie in franchise history in wins (301) at the time of his retirement and the goalie who led New York to a Stanley Cup victory in 1994. He was a franchise legend, but also a lost one — a man at a crossroads in his life, trying to regain his health after a series of injuries.

Mike Richter wipes away a tear during a press conference announcing his retirement on September 4, 2003 in New York. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Richter believes he would have been better equipped to retire at 22 than at 36. By the time he was 30, he had put so many hours into hockey. The sport had made itself the center of his life. And then it was gone.

“It’s like a death,” Richter said. “That was who you were, and you’re not anymore.”

The death of one career, however, led to the birth of another. Richter was always interested in the world outside his sport, which led him to Yale University and the field of renewable energy. Thirty summers after winning the Stanley Cup, he is president of Brightcore Energy, a company focused on saving customers money and reducing their carbon footprint.

He has found the purpose of his career after football.

“In the world,” he said, “you have to reinvent yourself all the time.”

The path to reinvention wasn’t easy. While recovering from his 2002 concussion, Richter found himself exhausted from a 10-minute walk along the Hudson River — a far cry from his NHL-level workouts. He compared his symptoms to having a hangover and jet lag all at once. Bright lights and loud noises were difficult to deal with. He simultaneously felt tired but couldn’t sleep.

“It was a horror show,” he said.

The long recovery process helped him shift his focus in a way. He had young children, who he leaned on “in a way they don’t even recognize.” Just getting his health back became the most important thing, not getting back on the ice. He just wanted to feel like himself again.

It happened gradually. Concussions aren’t like knee or shoulder injuries, which have specific timelines. Recovery isn’t linear. But as Richter improved physically, his mental state improved.

GO DEEPER

Rangers Fan Poll Results: Shesterkin’s Next Contract, Confidence in Laviolette, More

During that time, he began applying to schools, with the goal of completing the bachelor’s degree he had begun at the University of Wisconsin in the 1980s. Yale accepted him as part of a program for nontraditional students.with exceptional backgrounds and aspirations,” and he enrolled in 2004. While in New Haven, Conn., he joined the club’s cycling team and also spent four seasons as a volunteer assistant with the university’s hockey team.

Yale gave Richter a sense of direction during a time of transition. And while he still didn’t know exactly what he would do after graduation, he had an easy answer when someone asked what he was going to do after retirement: He was back in school.

“It was a good transition,” he said.

Richter’s college experience was very different from that of most of his younger classmates. He did not stay on campus, but lived with his family in a small house in Guilford, Conn., on the coast. His free time, which revolved around raising his children, was very different from that of the younger students. Most people on campus did not know about his NHL background, and if they did, “they didn’t give a damn,” he said.

His age led to some unusual and sometimes humorous interactions. Once, when Richter arrived early to class, a student began asking the former goalie if he had missed an upcoming class. Then it dawned on Richter: the boy thought he was the professor.

Overall, the age difference was, in his words, “surprisingly not a big deal.” He found himself blending in with the community around him, graduating with a major in ethics, politics and economics — “you get a little bit of everything and how it all fits together,” he said — and a minor in environmental policy. He had enrolled with an interest in the environment.

“This is the air we breathe, this is the water we drink, these are the limited resources that we have or don’t have,” he said. “We need to figure it out and figure it out fast. Because everybody has a stake.”

Richter has now been out of professional hockey for as long as he was in it — a baffling thought, he said. His second act brought him to Brightcore, where he has been president since 2016, shortly after its founding in 2015. He had already worked in the environmental sector and met the two founders, both of whom had experience on Wall Street and in clean energy, through a mutual connection.

Brightcore provides clean energy solutions aimed at helping customers reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. It recently partnered with Bard College to install a geothermal heating and cooling project at its library, replacing what the college described as a “fossil fuel-fired system.”

“These are not easy things to put in place, but when they’re done right they’re really robust and resilient and pretty quiet,” Richter said of the Bard project. “It’s like we were never there when the ground went up. It’s a pretty impressive transformation.”

Brightcore, which Richter says has about 120 employees, also works with other forms of energy, including solar and LED lighting.

The day-to-day for Richter, who has expressed interest in running for political office in the past and has not ruled it out in the future, involves a lot of phone and video calls with clients. He focuses primarily on business development and sales, but as a company leader he also strives to keep employees motivated. He finds that most come to work with a lot of drive because they recognize the importance of the future of the environment.

Mike Richter waves to Rangers fans during the Henrik Lundqvist jersey retirement ceremony at Madison Square Garden in January 2022. (Steven Ryan/Getty Images)

Despite his busy work life, Richter keeps the Rangers—and hockey in general—high on his mind. He attends as many regular-season games as possible and watches all playoff games on TV, regardless of the team. Since 2014, the Mike Richter Award has been given to the most outstanding goalie in the regular season of men’s college hockey. In his spare time, Richter plays in a men’s league. He remains a fan of the sport.

As a player, Richter wanted to make the most of the opportunity he had, to maximize his potential. Now, he is with a different type of team and is trying to do the same in his new work environment.

“It’s fascinating to go from one world to another,” he said. “I feel like there’s a larger, meaningful need that you’re addressing. … If you can make the world a little bit better, that’s great.”

(Top photos: Getty Images)