Boston Bruins

The Boston Bruins are a professional men's ice hockey team based in Boston, Massachusetts. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The team has been in existence since 1924, entering the league as the first American based expansion franchise. The team's home arena is the 17,565 capacity TD Banknorth Garden where it has played since 1995, after leaving the Boston Garden which had been their home since 1928. The team's mascot is Blades the Bruin, an anthropomorphic bear.

Franchise history

The Pre-World War II years
In 1923, at the convincing of Boston grocery tycoon Charles Adams, the National Hockey League decided to expand to the United States. Adams had fallen in love with hockey while watching the Stanley Cup playoffs. He persuaded the NHL to grant him a franchise for Boston.

Adams' first act was to hire Art Ross as general manager. Ross would stay with the team for thirty years, including four separate stints as coach.

Adams directed Ross to come up with a nickname that would portray an untamed animal displaying speed, agility, and cunning. Ross came up with "Bruins." The team's bearlike nickname also went along with the team's colors of brown and yellow, which came from Adams' grocery chain, First National Stores. The team finished last in its inaugural season, and finished just a point out of the playoffs a year later.

In their third season, 1926-27, the team markedly improved. Ross took advantage of the collapse of the Western Hockey League to purchase several western stars, including the team's first great star, a defenseman from Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan, named Eddie Shore. The Bruins reached the Stanley Cup Final despite finishing only one game above .500, but lost to the Ottawa Senators. Boston won its first Stanley Cup two years later by defeating the New York Rangers behind stars like Shore, Harry Oliver, Dit Clapper, Dutch Gainor, and goaltender Tiny Thompson. That season was also the first in the Boston Garden, which Adams had built after guaranteeing his backers $500,000 in gate receipts over the next five years. The season after that, 1929-30, the Bruins posted the best-ever regular season winning percentage in the NHL (an astonishing .875, winning 38 out of 44 games, a record which still stands), but would lose to the Montreal Canadiens in the Final.

Except for a few seasons, the Bruins would remain competitive through the 1930s with players such as Shore, Thompson, Clapper, Babe Siebert and Cooney Weiland, but failed to capture their second Cup until 1939, the season the team's colors changed from brown and yellow to the current black and gold. That same year, Ross dealt Thompson in favor of then-untried rookie goaltender Frank Brimsek. Yet, "Mr. Zero" Brimsek would end up winning the Vezina and Calder Trophies and becoming the first rookie ever to make the NHL First All-Star Team, and headlined by the "Kraut Line" of center Milt Schmidt, right winger Bobby Bauer, and left winger Woody Dumart, Bill Cowley, Shore, Clapper and "Sudden Death" Mel Hill (who scored three overtime goals in one playoff series), the Bruins won the Cup. Shore was dealt to the struggling New York Americans for his final NHL season the next year, but the following season, the Bruins — finishing first in the regular season, losing only eight games — won their third Stanley Cup, because of the strong play by Cowley, the Krauts, and Brimsek, and with Weiland as their new coach. It was their last Stanley Cup for 29 years.

World War II and the "Original Six" Era
World War II affected the Bruins worse than most teams; Brimsek and the "Krauts" all enlisted after the 1940-41 Cup win, and lost the most productive years of their careers at war. Cowley, assisted by veteran player Clapper and Busher Jackson, was the team's remaining star. Even though the NHL had by 1943 been reduced to the six teams that would in the modern era be — erroneously — called the "Original Six", talent was depleted enough that freak seasons could take place, as in 1944, when Bruin Herb Cain would set the then-NHL record for points in a season with 82. But the Bruins didn't make the playoffs that season, and Cain would be out of the NHL two years later.

The stars would return for 1945-46, and Clapper led the team back to the Stanley Cup Final as player-coach. He retired as a player after the next season, becoming the first player in history to play twenty NHL seasons, but stayed on as coach for two more years. Unfortunately, Brimsek was not as good as he was before the war, and after 1946 the Bruins lost in the first playoff round three straight years, resulting in Clapper's resignation. Brimsek was traded to the last-place Chicago Black Hawks in 1949, (citing a wish to help his brother with a business he was starting), followed by the unfortunate banning of young star Don Gallinger for life on suspicion of gambling. The only remaining quality young player who stayed with the team for any length was forward Johnny Peirson, who would later be the team's television color commentator in the 1970s.

The 1950s began with Charles Adams' son Weston (who had been team president since 1936) facing financial trouble. He was forced to accept a buyout offer from Walter A. Brown, the owner of the National Basketball Association's Boston Celtics and the Garden, in 1951. Although there were some instances of success (such as making the Stanley Cup Final in 1953, 1957, and 1958, only to lose to the Montreal Canadiens each time), the Bruins mustered only four winning seasons between 1947 and 1967. They missed the playoffs eight straight years between 1960 and 1967.

During this period, the farm system of the Bruins was not as expansive or well-developed as most of the other five teams. The Bruins sought players not protected by the other teams and in 1958 signed Willie O'Ree, the first black player in the NHL. In like fashion, the team signed Tommy Williams from the 1960 Olympic-gold medal winning American national men's hockey team — at the time the only American player in the NHL — in 1962. The "Uke Line" — named for the Ukrainian heritage of Johnny Bucyk and Vic Stasiuk (their linemate, Bronco Horvath, was largely Hungarian) — came to Boston and enjoyed four productive offensive seasons even as the Bruins were struggling overall.

Expansion and the Big Bad Bruins
Weston Adams repurchased the Bruins in 1964 after Brown's death and set about rebuilding the team. Adams drafted a defenseman from Parry Sound, Ontario, named Bobby Orr, who entered the league in 1966 and would become, in the eyes of many, the greatest player of all time.[citation needed] He was announced that season's winner of the Calder Memorial Trophy for Rookie of the Year and named to the Second NHL All-Star Team. When asked about Orr's NHL debut game, October 19, 1966, against the Detroit Red Wings, then-Bruins coach Harry Sinden recalled:

"Our fans had heard about this kid for a few years now. There was a lot of pressure on him, but he met all the expectations. He was a star from the moment they played the national anthem in the opening game of the season."

[citation needed]

The Bruins then obtained young forwards Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge, and Fred Stanfield from Chicago in a deal that turned out to be very one-sided. Hodge and Stanfield became key elements of the Bruins' success, and Esposito, who centered a line with Hodge and Wayne Cashman, would become the league's top goal-scorer and the first NHL player to break the 100-point mark, setting many goal- and point-scoring records. Esposito remains one of four players to win the Art Ross Trophy four consecutive seasons (the other three are Jaromir Jagr, Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe). With other stars like forwards Bucyk, John McKenzie, Derek Sanderson and Hodge, steady defenders like Dallas Smith and goaltender Gerry Cheevers, the "Big Bad Bruins" became one of the league's top teams from the late 1960s through the 1970s.
In 1970, a 29-year Stanley Cup drought came to an end in Boston, as the Bruins defeated the St. Louis Blues in four games in the Final. Orr scored the game-winning goal in overtime to clinch the stanley Cup. The same season was Orr's most awarded — the third of eight consecutive years he won the James Norris Memorial Trophy as the top defenseman in the NHL — and he won the Art Ross Trophy, the Conn Smythe Trophy, and the Hart Memorial Trophy, the only player to win those four awards all in the same season.

1971 was, in retrospect, the high watermark of the Seventies for Boston. While Sinden temporarily retired from hockey to enter business (he was replaced by ex-Bruin and Canadien defenceman Tom Johnson) the Bruins' set dozens of offensive scoring records: they had seven of the league's top ten scorers — a feat not achieved before or since — set the record for wins in a season, and in a league that had never seen a 100-point scorer before 1969 (Esposito had 126), the Bruins had four that year. All four (Orr, Esposito, Bucyk and Hodge) were named First Team All-Stars, a feat matched in the expansion era only by the 1976-77 Canadiens. Boston were favorate to repeat as Cup champions, but ran into a roadblock in the playoffs. Up 5-1 at one point in game two of the quarterfinals against the Canadiens (and rookie goaltender Ken Dryden), the Bruins squandered the lead to lose 7-5. The Bruins never recovered and lost the series in seven games.

While the Bruins were not quite as dominant the next season (although only three points behind the 1971 pace), Esposito and Orr were once again one-two in the scoring standings (followed by Bucyk in ninth place) and they regained the Stanley Cup by defeating the New York Rangers in six games in the Finals. The 1972 Cup win is Boston's most recent to date. Rangers blue liner Brad Park, who came runner-up to Orr's five-year (then) monopoly, said, "Bobby Orr was — didn't make — the difference."

Boston continued to dominate through the 1970s (despite losing Cheeversl, McKenzie, Sanderson, and other stars to the World Hockey Association), only to come up short in the playoffs. Although they had three 100-point scorers on the team (Esposito, Orr, and Hodge), they lost the 1974 Final to the Philadelphia Flyers.

Don Cherry stepped behind the bench as the new coach in 1974-75. The Bruins stocked themselves with enforcers and grinders, and remained competitive under Cherry's reign, the so-called "Lunch Pail A.C.," behind players such as Gregg Sheppard, Terry O'Reilly and Stan Jonathan, and Peter McNab.

Orr left the Bruins for the Hawks in 1976, and retired after many knee operations in 1979. The Bruins traded Esposito and Carol Vadnais for Brad Park, Jean Ratelle, and Joe Zanussi to the Rangers. They made the semifinals again, losing to the Flyers.

Cheevers returned from the WHA in 1976, and the Bruins got past the Flyers in the semifinals, but lost to the Canadiens in the Final for the Cup. The story would repeat itself in 1978 as the Bruins made the Final once more, but lost to a Canadiens team that had recorded the best regular season in modern history, after which Johnny Bucyk retired, holding virtually every Bruins' career longevity and scoring mark to that time.

The 1979 semifinal series against the Habs proved to be Cherry's undoing. In the deciding seventh game, the Bruins, up by a goal, were called for having too many men on the ice in the late stages of the third period. Montreal tied the game on the ensuing power play and won in overtime. Never popular with Harry Sinden, by then the Bruins' general manager, Cherry left the team in the off-season for the Colorado Rockies.

At Madison Square Garden, on December 26, 1979, a New York Rangers fan stole Stan Jonathan's stick, hitting him with it during a post-game scrum. When other fans got involved, Terry O'Reilly charged into the stands followed by his teammates. The game's TV commentator remarked that "they're going to pull that guy apart". O'Reilly, a future team captain, received an eight-game suspension for the brawl.

The Eighties and Nineties
Coupled with front-office dislike of Cherry's outspoken ways, 1979 saw new head coach Fred Creighton, a newly-retired Cheevers the following year, and the coming of Ray Bourque. The defenseman remained with the team for over two decades.

The Bruins made the playoffs every year through the 1980s behind stars such as Park, Bourque, and Rick Middleton — and had the league's best record in 1983 behind a Vezina Trophy-winning season from ex-Flyer goaltender Pete Peeters — but usually did not get very far in the playoffs.

By the late 1980s, Bourque, Cam Neely, Keith Crowder and Bob Sweeney would lead the Bruins to another Finals. appearance in 1988 against the Edmonton Oilers. The Bruins lost in a four-game sweep, but created a memorable moment in the would-be fourth game when in the second period with the game tied 3-3, a blown fuse put the lights out at the Boston Garden. The rest of the game was cancelled and the series shifted to Edmonton. The Oilers completed the sweep, 6-3, back at Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton, in what was originally scheduled in game five.

Boston returned to the Stanley Cup Final in 1990 (with Neely, Bourque, Craig Janney, Bobby Carpenter and rookie Don Sweeney, and former Oiler goalie Andy Moog and Rejean Lemelin splitting goaltending duties), but would again lose to the Oilers, this time in five games.

In 1988, 1990-92, and 1994, they defeated their Original Six arch-nemesis in the playoffs, the Montreal Canadiens, getting some revenge for a rivalry which had up to then been lopsided in the Canadiens' favor in playoff action. In 1991 and 1992, they suffered two consecutive Conference Final losses to the eventual Cup champion, the Mario Lemieux-led Pittsburgh Penguins.

Since the 1993 season, Boston has not gotten past the second round of the playoffs despite the talent of Adam Oates, Rick Tocchet, and Jozef Stumpel. The 1993 season ended disappointingly for several reasons. Despite finishing with the second-best regular season record after Pittsburgh, Boston was swept in the first-round by the Buffalo Sabres. During the postseason awards ceremony, Bruin players finished as runner-up on many of the honors (Bourque for the Norris, Oates for the Art Ross and Lady Byng Trophy, Joé Juneau [who had broken the NHL record for assists in a season by a left-winger, a mark he still holds] for the Calder Trophy, Dave Poulin for the Frank J. Selke Trophy, Moog for the William M. Jennings Trophy, and Brian Sutter for the Jack Adams Award), although Bourque made the NHL All-Star First Team and Juneau the NHL All-Rookie Team.

In 1997, Boston missed the playoffs for the first time in 30 years, having set the North American major professional record for most consecutive seasons in the playoffs.

The late 1990s also saw the Bruins move from the Boston Garden to their new home, the FleetCenter, now known as the TD Banknorth Garden.

Historically, their most bitter arch rivals have been the Montreal Canadiens, whom the Bruins have played a record 30 times in the playoffs.

The 21st century
Despite a fifteen-point improvement from the previous season, the Bruins missed the playoffs in 2000-01. Leading scorer Jason Allison led the Bruins.

The following season, 2001-02, the Bruins improved again with another thirteen points, winning their first Northeast Division title since 1993 with a core built around Joe Thornton, Sergei Samsonov, Brian Rolston, Bill Guerin, and the newly acquired Glen Murray. Their regular season success didn't translate to the postseason, as they lost in six games to the underdog eighth-place Canadiens in the first round.

The 2002-03 season found the Bruins platooning their goaltending staff between Steve Shields and John Grahame for most of the season. A mid-season trade brought in veteran Jeff Hackett. The Bruins managed to finish seventh in the East, but lost to the eventual Stanley Cup Champion New Jersey Devils in five games.

In 2003-04, the Bruins began the season with ex-Toronto Maple Leaf goalie Felix Potvin. Later in the season, the Bruins put rookie Andrew Raycroft into the starting role. Raycroft eventually won the Calder Award that season. The Bruins went on to win another division title and appeared to get past the first round for the first time in five years with a 3-1 series lead on the rival Canadiens. The Canadiens rallied back, however, to win three straight games, upsetting the Bruins.

The 2004-05 NHL season was wiped out by a lockout, and the Bruins had a lot of space within the new salary cap implemented for 2005-06. Bruins management eschewed younger free agents in favor of older veterans such as Alexei Zhamnov and Brian Leetch. The newcomers were oft-injured, and by the end of November, the Bruins team traded their captain and franchise player, Joe Thornton (who went on to win the Art Ross and Hart Trophies). In exchange, the Bruins received Marco Sturm, Brad Stuart and Wayne Primeau from the San Jose Sharks.

After losing ten of eleven games before the trade (while the Sharks won Thornton's first seven games in San Jose), the Bruins came back with a 3-0 victory over the league-leading Ottawa Senators, as rookie goaltender Hannu Toivonen earned his first career NHL shutout victory. When Toivonen went down (for the rest of the season) with an injury in January, journeyman goalie Tim Thomas started sixteen straight games and brought the Bruins back into the playoff run. Two points out of eighth place at the Winter Olympic break, the Bruins fired general manager Mike O'Connell in March and the Bruins missed the playoffs for the first time in five years. They finished thirteenth in the Eastern Conference and earned the fifth pick in the NHL Draft Lottery, which they used to draft U.S. college player Phil Kessel, who dropped out of college early to sign with the team on August 17, 2006.

Peter Chiarelli was hired as the new GM of the team. Head coach Mike Sullivan was fired and Dave Lewis, former coach of the Detroit Red Wings, was hired to replace him while Marc Habscheid and Doug Houda were named associate coaches. The Bruins signed Zdeno Chara, one of the most coveted defensemen in the NHL and a former NHL All-Star, from the Senators, and Marc Savard, who finished just three points short of a 100-point season in '05-'06 with the Atlanta Thrashers, to long-term deals. Bergeron was re-signed by the Bruins on August 22, 2006, to a multi-year contract, keeping the developing player on the team for some years to come.

The 2006-07 season ended in the team finishing in last place in the division. The Bruins traded Brad Stuart and Wayne Primeau to the Calgary Flames for Andrew Ference and forward Chuck Kobasew.

**WIKIPEDIA.ORG