Did You Know
The '''Boston Bruins''' are a professional 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 United States-based expansion franchise. They are also an Original Six team, along with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings, New York Rangers, Montreal Canadiens and Chicago Blackhawks. Their home arena is the 17,565 capacity TD Banknorth Garden where they have played since 1995, after leaving the Boston Garden which had been their home since 1928. Boston currently has the second most Stanley Cup championships by an American team (5); Detroit has 11.
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, in person, the 1924 Stanley Cup Finals between the NHL champion Montreal Canadiens, and the WCHL champion Calgary Tigers. He persuaded the NHL to grant him a franchise for Boston. With the Montreal Maroons, the team was one of the NHL's first two expansion teams.
Adams' first act was to hire Art Ross, a former star player and innovator, as general manager. Ross would be the face of the franchise 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 original uniform colors of brown and yellow, which came from Adams' grocery chain, First National Stores.[Donovan (1997).]
It was on December 1, 1924, that the new Bruins team would play their very first NHL game against the Maroons, playing them at what was the Boston Arena, with the Bruins winning the game by a 2-1 score. But the team only managed a 6-24-0 record (for last place) in its first season, and would play three more seasons in the Boston Arena, after which the Bruins became the main tenant of what would become the famous Boston Garden, while the old Boston Arena facility was eventually taken over by Northeastern University, and renamed the Matthews Arena when the university renovated it in 1979.
, longtime Bruins' captain and coach.
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. In 1929 the Bruins defeated the New York Rangers to win their first Stanley Cup. Standout players on the first championship team included Shore, Harry Oliver, Dit Clapper, Dutch Gainor and goaltender Tiny Thompson. The 1928?29 season was the first played at 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.
The 1930s Bruins team included Shore, Thompson, Clapper, Babe Siebert and Cooney Weiland. The team led the league's standings five times in that decade. In 1939, the team changed its uniform colors from brown and yellow to the current black and gold, and captured the second Stanley Cup in franchise history. That year, Thompson was traded for rookie goaltender Frank Brimsek. Brimsek had an award-winning season, capturing the Vezina and Calder Trophies, becoming the first rookie named to the NHL First All-Star Team, and earning the nickname "Mr. Zero." The team skating in front of Thompson included Bill Cowley, Shore, Clapper and "Sudden Death" Mel Hill (who scored three overtime goals in one playoff series), together with the "Kraut Line" of center Milt Schmidt, right winger Bobby Bauer and left winger Woody Dumart. In 1940 Shore was traded to the struggling New York Americans for his final NHL season. In 1941 the Bruins won their third Stanley Cup after losing only eight games and finishing first in the regular season. It was their last Stanley Cup for 29 years.
|
