New Bruin Riley Tufte has had to deal with a lot of ups and downs in his hockey career, including Type 1 diabetes

Riley Tufte knows all about the highs and lows.

One of the Bruins’ free agent signees last month, Tufte has been through the ups and downs of hockey and also the ebbs and flows of managing Type 1 diabetes.

Like seemingly every kid growing up in Minnesota, Tufte spent his sweltering summer days in the rinks and his wicked winter days on the state of hockey’s myriad lakes.

He couldn’t get enough of the ice, eagerly strapping on the blades whenever the opportunity arose.

Then, during his pee-wee season, things changed. His energy levels dropped, and he had an unquenchable thirst.

Tufte’s mother, Amy, sensed something was amiss and took Riley for tests that confirmed the diagnosis.

“It was pretty crazy,” Tufte said via telephone after a recent workout in Minnesota. “I mean, I got diagnosed when I was 11 years old, so my mom, thankfully, was a nurse at the time, so she knew my symptoms and stuff, which helped me out a ton.”

Tufte’s initial reaction to the news was pretty standard. Exactly what you’d expect from a preteen.

“It was such a shock to find out that I had it,” he said. “And you kind of go in denial at the beginning for me anyway. Like, ‘How can this be happening to me? I was always in good shape.’ “

After the initial jolt wore off, Tufte, with the support of his family, faced the diagnosis head on.

So began the tedious regimen of finger sticks (to check blood sugar levels) and corresponding doses of insulin shots to keep everything steady (to minimize/avoid the dangers of high and low levels).

In the 15 years since his diagnosis, Tufte’s game evolved, as did the technology to cope with and fight diabetes.

Continuous glucose monitors (or CGMs) and insulin pumps have made finger sticks and needles obsolete for many Type 1 diabetics.

“The technology has really taken off. I have an automated pump now, so if I go high in the middle of the night, it’ll automatically correct me. So, I wake up every morning, it’s the same number,” said Tufte.

Refusing to use the disease as an excuse, Tufte continued to excel on the ice.

Tufte was on the roster for the US select team at the 2014 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge and for the 2015 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Cup in the Czech Republic.

He played four seasons for Blaine High School, splitting his junior and senior seasons between the Bengals and the USHL’s Fargo Force. He was named Minnesota’s Mr. Hockey in 2016 after leading the state with 47 goals in 25 games.

“I was really thankful to get that award, it kind of kickstarted my hockey career,” Tufte said of the honor that previously had been bestowed on future NHLers Ryan McDonagh (2007), Nick Leddy (2009), and Nick Bjugstad (2010).

The 6-foot-6-inch, 230-pound Tufte was taken 25th overall by the Dallas Stars in 2016 before moving on to the University of Minnesota Duluth.

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In three seasons with the Bulldogs, Tufte, known for his strong skating and soft hands, put up 34 goals and 64 points. UMD reached the Frozen Four title game all three campaigns, losing to Jim Montgomery’s Denver squad in 2017 before earning back-to-back titles over Notre Dame and UMass.

“It was awesome,” said Tufte, noting that the first crown came in St. Paul, just a short skate down I-694 from his hometown of Coon Rapids.

During his final season in Duluth, Tufte helped the US to a bronze medal at the 2018 World Junior Championship in Buffalo, where his teammates included current Bruins Jeremy Swayman and Andrew Peeke.

From there, Tufte moved on to Texas, where he spent most of his four seasons in Cedar Park playing with Dallas’s AHL affiliate (also the Stars). He showed improvement every season in that organization (where he crossed paths with Montgomery again), collecting 19 goals and 35 points in his final tour with the AHL Stars. He had one goal in 10 total games with the big club.

Tufte’s rise continued last season, when he put up career-high numbers (23 goals, 45 points) with the Colorado Eagles, the Avalanche’s top minor league affiliate. He had a goal and an assist in a five-game cameo with the Avalanche.

“Obviously, I was young in my career when I was with Dallas. I thought my development has been tremendously going upward. I think every year especially I’ve gotten better, which is good. You don’t want to see you going backward. And I’m going forward,” said Tufte. “I’ve said it all along, but I think it takes bigger guys a little bit longer to grow into their bodies and kind of figure out the game. And everywhere I’ve played, I kind of had to figure out the game. And this will be my fifth year as a pro, I believe, with the COVID year. But I was young in my Dallas and Texas career and probably got better every year, and kudos to them for my development. And I kind of played a fourth-line role there too, all four of my years. And I had to work for everything that I got, which I think was something pretty special.”

The Bruins put a premium on size this offseason. In addition to Tufte, they signed forwards Elias Lindholm (6-1), Max Jones (6-3), and Cole Koepke (6-1), as well as defenseman Nikita Zadorov (6-6).

“You look at the roster and every guy’s big and got some meat to them,” said Tufte. “So, I think the Boston Bruins are going to be pretty hard to play against. I mean, they already are, but I think this year especially they wanted to get bigger and stronger and harder to play against. So, I think that’s going to be our identity is going to be hard to play against, for sure.”

General manager Don Sweeney’s message to the incoming group who will be battling for roster spots was simple: “Just pin your ears back, train your ass off this summer, and come with the intent that there’ll be an opportunity here. If you’re the best player, then we’ll find a way to get you in the lineup.”

That’s the blueprint followed by Tufte, a player the Bruins have tracked for several seasons.

“I think I knew going into free agency just from the year before they were really interested, and once free agency started, my agents thought that this would be the best fit and they were the most interested,” said Tufte, who signed a one-way deal with a salary-cap hit of $775,000. “And there were a couple other teams in the mix too, but we just felt like Boston was the best fit for me and really trying to take off with my career here in the next year. So, looking to get that good opportunity and obviously you have to earn it, but they don’t just hand out one-ways anymore and they gave me a one-way, so it must tell you something.”

Though he hasn’t donned the Black and Gold yet, Tufte said he already feels a sense of camaraderie with his new teammates.

“I’ve been so impressed with this organization just as far as people reaching out,” he said. “A couple of the players reached out to me right away and I’ve never really seen that before. So, I think that tells you a lot about the organization. It’s really special.”

Tufte expects to be in Boston at the end of this month as he wraps up his summer, which included hosting a camp for young players with diabetes in Vadnais Heights, Minn.

“That was something that was pretty special to me,” said Tufte, who is hoping to make it an annual event.

“I put them through some meetings every day and just kind of talked to them a little bit about what I do and their struggles and kind of talked them out a little bit and gave them the floor to ask me questions and stuff,” he said. “So, I think it was the biggest thing you want to do is just keep these young diabetics motivated and keep their dreams alive because there’s a lot of tough days with diabetes, and I still have a lot of tough days, too. So, it’s more about just getting all together and keeping them motivated.”

The NCAA was hit with a lawsuit recently over, you guessed it, eligibility.

It’s a new suit, but it’s the same old story when it comes to the NCAA, which historically finds itself on the wrong side of common-sense issues.

This suit was filed by Canadian junior hockey player Rylan Masterson, who is suing the billion-dollar organization (which makes its money off the backs of student-athletes) and 10 universities, claiming the NCAA is violating antitrust laws by banning players who have been paid in junior leagues.

The 10 schools named are Boston College, Boston University, Stonehill, Quinnipiac, Denver, Notre Dame, Niagara, Canisius, Rochester Institute of Technology, and St. Thomas.

Though it’s not clear why those specific schools were named in the suit, it’s likely those were among Masterson’s desired destinations.