They are playing the Warrior For Life Fund All-Stars, a group composed mostly of active duty and retired Navy SEALS that beat the Bruins in 2021.
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The Bruins’ centennial celebration is over, every last crumb of black and gold cake consumed, the time capsule of their first 100 years sealed and buried. The reunions, though, will continue indefinitely.
Here come the 2011 Stanley Cup champions, grayer and slower than you remember them, ready to don the Spoked-B one more time.
Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara, David Krejci, and many of the champions from ‘11 are part of a loaded roster for Saturday’s Bruins alumni game. The old fogeys are bringing their best for what is usually the most competitive game on its annual slate.
They are playing the Warrior For Life Fund All-Stars, a group composed mostly of active duty and retired Navy SEALS that beat the Bruins in 2021. Nearly all of these alumni games are deliberately paced, but not this one. If the ex-B’s don’t show up, the result won’t be in their favor.
“They’re in top physical condition. A lot of them played high-level hockey,” said Bruins alumni president Frank Simonetti, the former defenseman from Stoneham. “It’s not a cakewalk of a game by any stretch.”
Winning, of course, is not the real mission.
The alumni squad plays 40 games from September to April, with proceeds going to various charities. This one is for the Warrior For Life Fund, Fisher House of Boston, and Operation Hat Trick, organizations that benefit service members and their families. The game is held in the memory of Nathan Hardy, a Navy SEAL from Durham, N.H., who was killed in action in Iraq in 2008.
The Bruins alumni, started in 1968 by a group including Eddie Sandford, Milt Schmidt, and former Bruins publicist Herb Ralby, says it has raised some $10 million over the last five-plus decades, with $2 million of that goingto the Massachusetts Down Syndrome Congress, as part of their 20-year charity game run. It is among the oldest, largest (57 ex-Bruins suited up last season), and well-organized of the NHL’s alumni teams.
“The Bruins group is absolutely exceptional,” said NHL Alumni Association president Glenn Healy, the former Kings, Islanders, Rangers, and Maple Leafs goaltender who oversees the league-funded wellness aid for nearly 5,000 living ex-NHLers. “They make tomorrow better than today for a bunch of people.”
Kevan Miller, who is on the Warrior For Life Fund board along with Simonetti, pulled a lot of weight in Saturday’s endeavor. He quickly rounded up the bulk of the 2011 squad after landing the two biggest names.
“If you have Z and Bergy,” said alumni team regular Andrew Raycroft, “no one else can really say no.”
That includes Krejci, who is said to be pulling on his boots for the first time since retiring two summers ago. Mark Recchi, a Blue Jackets assistant, will be buzzing around. Bruins assistant Chris Kelly and director of player development Adam McQuaid are in, as are Panthers front-office suits Gregory Campbell and Shawn Thornton. Andrew Ference (now the NHL’s director of youth strategy), Dennis Seidenberg, and Johnny Boychuk will dust off the mitts.
Bergeron, who made his alumni debut in this game last year, said they jumped on board quickly.
“First of all, it’s a great opportunity for us to catch up with the guys while helping raise money for a great charity,” he wrote in a text message. “Will be fun to connect and I think we are all looking forward to it.”
From all reports, Bergeron still looks like a No. 1 center.
“He’s so good,” said Raycroft, a NESN commentator and former Bruins goalie, who skates with Bergeron weekly. “He could easily play [in the NHL] now. He doesn’t think so. But he could.”
Chara, 47 and still carved from Slovakian stone, will be taking time out of his marathoning and parenting schedule. He played his first Bruins alumni game in 2022, a year after the alumni took a loss from the SEALs. It was their first loss in recent memory.
Tim Thomas will be there as a coach. He is still working through the concussion-related issues that ended his playing career. “He says he’ll never put the [goalie] pads on again,” Simonetti said, “but he wants to get to the point where he skates out.”
That’s a standard line for old goalies. Few are the retired pros whose hips will allow them to make kick saves, so they get their kicks making plays. Likely skating on a line with Raycroft, Tuukka Rask will don his No. 40 at forward.
“He’s been the first star of our games a few times,” Simonetti said of the popular Finn, who retired in 2022. “He can score goals. He’s got that reach. He can dangle. He puts himself in the right place every time. And he’s a magnet for fans.”
In net, the team uses Bruins emergency backup goalie Shamus Egan and state trooper Keith Segee (who has practiced with the Bruins as a spare). Other blast-from-the-past names who will play include Miller, Bryan Smolinski, Andrew Alberts, Mark Mowers, P.J. Stock, and Tim Schaller.
They will hear the roar again, this time in a sold-out Warrior Arena (capacity: about 500; game time: 7 p.m.). They’ll enjoy it, but that’s not why they play.
“It’s the guys,” Raycroft said. “You walk in the room and get a bunch of ‘eyyyyys.’ It’s uplifting. It feels normal. It’s something you don’t get anywhere else, at least I don’t in my daily life.
“The chirps do get better with age. We’re far from anything we used to look like on TV. But you never have to worry about anyone having a slump.”
