For Boston Bruins “feel good” moments, it’s going to be difficult to top watching Zdeno Chara’s No. 33 getting retired in a classy, emotional ceremony that hit all the right notes immediately before the B’s went out and swept their first five game homestand since 2019, with a solid 4-2 victory over the Seattle Kraken at TD Garden on Thursday night.
It’s always going to be a good night when 2011 Cup champs like Mark Recchi, David Krejci, Tim Thomas, Tuukka Rask, Dennis Seidenberg, Andrew Ference and Patrice Bergeron are in the building, and that goes doubly so for Bobby Orr, Johnny Bucyk, Willie O’Ree, Terry O’Reilly and Ray Bourque making the ceremony as well. And it’s a fitting show of respect and admiration to Chara’s 15 years in Boston that it felt like everybody who played a part in Chara’s glorious run in Boston was at least a small part of the ceremony.
The win on the ice after the ceremony kept the Bruins in the second wild card spot in the playoff standings and continued to underscore the efforts of this season’s team to return to the culture that Chara restored to the Black and Gold back in 2006 when he signed in Boston as a free agent.
Chara called it “the best decision of my life” signing with the Bruins and taking a bit of a risk on an unknown NHL city and an Original Six organization he didn’t know all that well, but he became the greatest free agent signing in NHL history.
“So well deserved,” said Bourque when talking about Chara’s retirement ceremony after walking the Gold Carpet on Thursday night. “Things really changed when (Zdeno) came here as a free agent, and from that point on, the culture and everything that comes with that, the success, the run they had, he was such a big part of that.
“I just remember him as a fresh young player coming up with the Islanders, and what he became. It’s a credit to him and how hard and dedicated he was for the game, and just so much, so much fun to watch him develop into the player and person that he is. He's a legend. He really deserves to be up there…deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.”
The pomp and circumstance, the organic “Thank You, Chara!” chants that almost made the 6-foot-9 Slovakian burst into tears and the sight of Chara watching wife Tatiana and children Elliz, Zack and Ben lift his banner to the rafters all had to make a sizeable impression on current core Bruins players like David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, Morgan Geekie, Jeremy Swayman, Nikita Zadorov, Elias Lindholm and so many others.
Chara had a message for all of those Bruins players – and to everybody really – about how his moment could be possible for them, and why it was so important that he rattled off every single one of his 2011 Stanley Cup champ teammates while making a speed ahead of the banner getting raised.
“It's just that without championships, you are not going to be successful. You are not going to be recognized. The championships, that's what they do. They rise everyone [up], they extend careers for everyone. Everybody does better with the championships. I mean, you create dynasties, you create stories, you create memories, you create what we are experiencing [with the number retirement.] It's very simple,” said Chara. “Once you win a championship, everything gets so much better and greater and better, for everyone, and that is the most beautiful thing about it. You create extended families with each other.
“It's true, you have bonds, you have friendships that are now sealed forever. We see each other. It's amazing. It's like you've seen your brother for real, and you can trust the person, you know everything about him, and anytime anybody needs something, you're there for him. That's what championships do, not just like I said, from a career standpoint, they help you…but also for the rest of their life. They create something very special.”
Chara is right, of course, that the Hall of Fame inductions and the jersey retirements don’t happen, or take much longer to become a reality, if there are no Stanley Cup titles to go with it. But we are also still talking about the career NHL leader in games played for a defenseman, a Norris Trophy winner and a larger-than-life hockey icon that was the tallest player in history with the hardest slap shot by anybody, ever.
So there was always something special about the 6-foot-9 Slovakian as he mastered a handful of languages that he can speak, became a licensed real estate agent and spends his free time running marathons all over the world as he’s done since retiring as a hockey player. But it’s the importance of a hard-working, unselfish and team-oriented culture teeming with respect and competition that has always been the true Chara legacy in Boston, and it’s one that has been passed down to guys like McAvoy, Pastrnak and Sean Kuraly who played with him during the Boston years.
“Obviously he’s a big mentor. He’s been a part of my growth in my career. I have a lot to thank him for…and he knows it. We have a great relationship,” said Pastrnak. “It’s this simple: If you pick up his work ethic, the way he works and the way he shows up to the rink every day and leads by example. There was no other way than to follow him and that’s the easiest way to put it.”
It was easy to see how the positive energy transferred from Chara’s ceremony right into the B’s scoring a pair of goals in the opening four minutes of the game that allowed them to cruise to a fifth straight win. As Chara said about the banner raising itself, “it was even better than I could have imagined to be” when the Bruins players wrapped everything up into a bow in one of the surefire season highlights for the Black and Gold.
