Next Goal Wins! by Liam Maguire

Author:Liam Maguire [Maguire, Liam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-36341-1
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2012-11-20T05:00:00+00:00

The Bruins were the first American team to join the NHL, in 1924. The Boston Arena was their home for the first four years. The dates and details listed above for the last games played in the Garden represent the official final games. Prior to the 1995–96 season, an exhibition contest was played between the Bruins and the Montreal Canadiens. As was the case a few years later with the Chicago Blackhawks and Maple Leaf Gardens, this match was a closing of the circle: the Habs had been the first and, albeit unofficially, last opponents to play at the Garden. The Habs had helped opened the building almost 67 years earlier.

Boston won the preseason contest, but it’s what happened after the game that had fans talking for a long time. Boston Bruins great Ray Bourque brought Normand Leveille, a former Bruin and a teammate of Bourque’s whose career was cut short by a brain aneurysm, out onto the ice for a last skate. Leveille suffered the aneurysm nine games into his second season, on October 23, 1982. The doctors said that, were it not for his incredible physical condition, he surely would have died. He’s still alive at the time of this writing. I would have to say that, next to the ovation given Rocket Richard on the final night at the Montreal Forum, this was the most amazing and touching scene I have ever witnessed in the sport.

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