Bruins set for Centennial celebration on 100-year anniversary of 1st game  

BOSTON -- The Boston Bruins were winners in their first NHL game 100 years ago, defeating the visiting Montreal Maroons 2-1 on Dec. 1, 1924.

On Sunday, wearing their black and gold, the Bruins will hope for a similar result when they play their Centennial game at TD Garden against another Montreal team -- the red, white and blue archrival Canadiens – in the 6,898th regular-season game in franchise history (3 p.m. ET, NESN, SN, RDS).

Twenty-four hours before the Bruins' TD Garden celebration of their history, the team's massive bear-shaped Centennial Legacy Monument was unveiled at Portal Park beside the arena, facing Causeway St.

In breezy 40-degree temperatures, the ceremony was attended by Bruins chief executive officer Charlie Jacobs, president Cam Neely, fellow Hall of Fame legends Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito and Ray Bourque, current Bruins captain Brad Marchand, other alumni and various dignitaries, including Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.

Both the state and city proclaimed Sunday to be Boston Bruins Centennial Day.

"Together, with the community and the values we have held in our hearts for 100 years, the Boston Bruins embark on the next century," an engraving on the statue's base reads. "May our past inspire future generations of hockey heroes and fans to pave the way for new memories. Here, all are welcome to share their love of the game."

On the adjacent side of the base: "Since 1924, the Boston Bruins have been woven into the fabric of our city with the same grit, passion and heart as our hometown. One hundred years of unforgettable moments shared together will be remembered and cherished for centuries to come."

The new monument – six feet tall and 10 feet long, made up of 90 pieces of bronze welded together into a piece that weighs more than 3,500 pounds – is the creation of sculptor Harry Weber, who in 2010 also produced the dramatic statue of Orr that's just a couple of rink-lengths away at North Station. That statue commemorates the legendary defenseman's iconic airborne celebration, having just scored the 1970 Game 4 overtime Stanley Cup-winning goal against the St. Louis Blues.

A century ago, the Bruins briefly an undefeated 1-0 in their NHL lifetime, at least one editor at the Boston Globe wasn't leading the cheers.

The 1925-26 Boston Bruins, photographed at Boston Arena. From row, from left: trainer Thomas Murray, John Brackenborough, Norm Shay, Charles Stewart, Carson Cooper, George Redding. Back row: owner Charles Adams, Gerry Geran, Lionel Hitchman, Stan Jackson, Jimmy Herbert, Red Stuart, Herb Mitchell, coach/general manager Art Ross.

"It Is Hard to Say Just How Well Professional Hockey Will Go in This City," read the following morning's eight-column banner headline atop the game story, with, "It Had A Good Start, Anyway" beneath it on a single column to acknowledge the win.

Suffice to say that, a century later, professional hockey has gone very well indeed in this city.

The six-time Stanley Cup-champion Bruins are an integral part of the local pro sports landscape, alongside the NBA's Boston Celtics, MLB's Boston Red Sox and the NFL's New England Patriots, with MLS's New England Revolution and PWHL Boston Fleet stirred into the mix.

Fifty-four men who have played for the Bruins have been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Another 12 with connections to the team have been enshrined in the Builder category.

Charles Francis Adams, first owner of the Boston Bruins, and a Dec. 2, 1924 Boston Globe report of the team's first NHL game, a 2-1 win against the visiting Montreal Maroons.

Among them is former captain Johnny Bucyk, who has been part of the Bruins family and the community at large since arriving from the Detroit Red Wings in a trade for goalie Terry Sawchuk on June 10, 1957.

Where other Bruins greats like Orr and Esposito are adored, they aren't often seen, living in Florida. Bucyk almost never misses a home game and even at 89, he regularly makes public appearances for myriad good causes.

A large part of the Bruins' popularity, he says, is because "it's just the way we do things for other people.

"We look after the unhealthy, we try to help them out, we do a lot of events and charity games with the alumni," Bucyk said Friday in Boston's TD Garden alumni suite during his team's game against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Johnny Bucyk (right) with Willie O'Ree, photographed at TD Garden on Nov. 29, 2024.

"The people know that we also think something of them. I have always said, they're the ones who pay our wages, let's give them something back. That's what we do. The current team visits hospitals, does a lot of shopping for kids. What I think the Bruins have been to me personally… it's just perfect. I couldn't be happier. I'm very proud to be a Bruin."

On Friday, Bucyk was joined in the alumni suite by the trailblazing Willie O'Ree, Rick Middleton and a handful of other former Bruins and their guests.

Outside the suite on the sixth floor of TD Garden is a rich celebration of the team's history, memorabilia and photos stretching a great length.

The Bruins -- not yet then known by that name -- stirred to life in February 1924 at the NHL Board of Governors meeting at Montreal's Windsor Hotel, in the same room where the NHL was born in 1917.

Part of a rich display of Boston Bruins history is showcased on the sixth floor of TD Garden, outside suites.

Franchise owner Charles Francis Adams, a deep-pocketed Vermont-native hockey fan who had made his fortune in the grocery business, secured the first NHL club in the U.S.

His team and the Maroons were formally admitted at a special League meeting on Oct. 12, 1924, the NHL schedule for seven teams to begin on Nov. 29.

Adams had returned to Montreal in March, on the lookout for his first general manager and coach even before his team was for real.

He was impressed by the poised work of referee Art Ross during a Stanley Cup semifinal and on Oct. 1, 1924, the multisport athlete and Montreal sporting-goods store owner was formally introduced as Boston's head hockey man.

Coach Art Ross (left) and defenseman Lionel Hitchman, the Bruins' first captain, frame a collage photo of the 1928-29 Stanley Cup champions.

Ross' influence reached far beyond the Bruins bench and management offices.

A pioneer off the ice, his innovative forward-pass offside rule was introduced in 1928. Ross then stubbornly championed a red line which finally appeared in 1943, the second season of the NHL's so-called "Original Six" modern era, speeding up the game and reducing offside calls.

Ross' puck-snaring net design was the NHL standard from 1928 into the 1980s, and his reduced-roll puck, patented in 1940, was used into the 1970s. He worked tirelessly to invent helmets, skate and ankle guards and modify sticks. He would be the first NHL coach to lift his goalie for a sixth skater.

With Ross on the road scouting talent, the 1924-25 season just weeks away, Adams worked promotion and ticket sales, needing a name for his fledging team.

A panorama of the Boston Bruins' inaugural game at Boston Garden, played Nov. 20, 1928. The Bruins lost 1-0 to the Montreal Canadiens on a goal scored by Sylvio Mantha.

The Boston Daily Record recorded the early suggestions of Bobolinks, Owls, Beavers and Squirrels. While the definitive source of the Bruins name is murky, many sources claiming something different, it seems to have been chosen by Bessie Moss, Ross' secretary; by Adams' wife; or by a contest.

In their 2023 team history "Bruins: Blood, Sweat & 100 Years," authors Richard A. Johnson and Rusty Sullivan write: "According to legend, Adams held a contest to name his team, and general manager Art Ross' secretary, Bessie Moss, came up with the Bruins name."

The original uniforms -- brown with yellow trim -- matched the color scheme of Adams' grocery stores.

Goalie Cecil "Tiny" Thompson poses for an on-ice portrait during the 1929-30 season at Boston Arena, having led the Bruins to the Stanley Cup the previous season; defenseman Eddie Shore wearing a helmet on Jan. 28, 1934 for a game against the New York Rangers.

The team's first game attracted a crowd reported to be 1,340, roughly half-capacity at Boston Arena, paying $3.30, $2.75 and $2.20 for seats and $1.10 for standing room, prices that Adams would shave for the next game. Those who came were treated to a spirited tussle the likes of which Bruins fans have come to enjoy the past century.

Boston rallied from a 1-0 deficit with goals by Smokey Harris, the first in franchise history, and Carson Cooper to earn the win, the teams taking the game's 37 penalty minutes all in the first period. Appropriately named Maroons forward Punch Broadbent was assessed 13, tagged with four minors and a major.

The Bruins' maiden-game victory was followed by a 10-game losing streak, Boston outscored 61-20. It was finally snapped with a 3-2 overtime win in Montreal against the Canadiens, Bernie Morris beating goalie Georges Vezina on the power play.

Aubrey "Dit" Clapper pulls on his Boston sweater before a game. Clapper is one of the greatest Bruins of all time, the captain from 1939-44 who would coach the team from 1945-49.

Boston then lost 11 of its next 12 and finished seventh and last in their first NHL season, winning six games and losing 24 for 12 points; the Bruins scored 49 goals, second-low to the Maroons' 45, and allowed a League-worst 119.

But under GM and coach Ross, the Bruins weren't doormats for long. In their third season, they went to the Stanley Cup Final, losing to the Ottawa Senators. Two years after that, Boston won the 1929 championship, sweeping the Canadiens, then the New York Rangers, who had joined the NHL in 1926-27 and won the Cup in just their second season.

Captain Lionel Hitchman, a rugged defenseman, was the Bruins' inspirational leader for a decade from the mid-1920s, punishing opponents alongside fellow hard-rock Eddie Shore. Hitchman's No. 3 was the first of 12 numbers the team has retired and hung from the rafters of Boston Garden, then TD Garden.

Bruins' Phil Esposito scores against Toronto's Bernie Parent during a 1971 game at Maple Leaf Gardens.

Bruins historian Jeff Miclash, in the Hockey Hall of Fame's Class of 2024 induction program, writes that Ross joked that the 1924-25 team was composed of three squads: "one playing, one coming and one going."

In an era when a team carried 10 players, owner Adams used more than 20, losing $30,000 to finish in the basement. Undeterred, he added wrecking-ball defenseman Sprague Cleghorn in the Bruins' second season, in which they missed the postseason by one point.

His losses were halved and in 1926, Adams bought the Western Hockey League in its entirety, selling off most of the players but keeping future Hall of Famers Eddie Shore and Harry Oliver.

In the expanded Boston Arena, the Bruins were making a profit in their third season, following the Rangers' 1928 Stanley Cup win with one of their own in 1929.

Fans packed Boston Garden, opened on Nov. 20, 1928, with a 1-0 loss to the Canadiens, and revenues soared. Miclash writes of the Bruins' brisk work at the grassroots level that engaged the community at historic levels, the team tightly stitched into New England's fabric.

Legendary Bruins defenseman Bobby Orr heads up ice with the puck during a 1970s game at Boston Garden.

On the other side of the Great Depression, the Bruins won the Stanley Cup in 1939 and 1941, losing the Final to Detroit in 1943. They were almost always a factor come the postseason, until the eight-season drought between 1959-60 and 1966-67 saw them fail to qualify for the playoffs.

And then came teenager Bobby Orr, the native of Parry Sound, Ontario who would redefine how not just defense was played, but indeed the entire game of hockey. Orr is in every discussion about the greatest player of all time, his eight consecutive wins of the Norris Trophy as the NHL's best defenseman a streak that forever will be untouchable.

Two more Stanley Cups followed, the rugged "Big, Bad Bruins" winning in 1970 and 1972. The firepower of sniper Phil Esposito, Orr's breathtaking rushes, the solid goaltending of Gerry Cheevers and Eddie Johnston and a memorable cast of characters turned Boston Garden into a madhouse, blue-collar fans loving the team's lunchpail work ethic.

Boston Bruins captains Milt Schmidt in the early 1950s (left) and Zdeno Chara in 2020.

It would be 39 long, even agonizing years and one arena later, the Bruins having moved into their current home in 1995, before Boston's next (and most recent) championship in 2011, five times during that span having lost the Final. Inspired by captain Zdeno Chara, a larger version of early-era Lionel Hitchman, the Bruins knocked off the Canadiens, then the Philadelphia Flyers, Tampa Bay Lightning and finally the Vancouver Canucks.

Historically, Boston has had captains who were silk or sandpaper, Chara's 14-season reign followed by the magnificent Patrice Bergeron and, since 2023, the more in-your-face Brad Marchand.

A galaxy of stars went before, including Ray Bourque, Rick Middleton, Terry O'Reilly, Wayne Cashman and Bucyk. Before 1967 expansion, the "C" was worn for five or more years by the likes of Fern Flaman, Milt Schmidt and Aubrey "Dit" Clapper.

Patrice Bergeron (right) with Bruins legend Johnny Bucyk before a TD Garden game on March 30, 2023. Bergeron is accepting the John P. Bucyk Award for charitable and community endeavors.

A pantheon of Bruins – Hall of Famers Orr, Esposito and Ray Bourque were among them, alongside team icons O'Ree, Middleton and O'Reilly – were at Saturday's monument unveiling.

"The Boston Bruins have grown up with this city and we have grown with this city," team CEO Charlie Jacobs told the assembled gathering, which included many fans. "The Bruins have become much more than just a hockey team. We are a part of the fabric of this city."

The monument, he said, "includes a message to the community and the values of the Boston Bruins, things that we've held to our hearts for 100 years.

"This bear also stands as a representation of the spirit and determination that defines the Boston Bruins. It is a tribute to every player, every coach, and every fan who has helped to shape our history for the past century."

Bruins captain Brad Marchand speaks at Saturday's monument unveiling. Fellow speakers, from left: Bruins president Cam Neely, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Bruins chief executive officer Charlie Jacobs.

In September 2023, a panel of journalists and media members, historians and members of the hockey community pored over an all-time roster of more than 1,000 players to choose the "Historic 100," an unranked list of 100 who represented the Bruins with special distinction.

A month later, from that list, was chosen the All-Centennial Team -- a 20-man group of "the most legendary players" in franchise history.

Gerry Cheevers (left) and Frank Brimsek, in 2023 voted the two goalies on the Bruins' 20-man All-Centennial team.

The lists spanned the Bruins century, the All-Centennial team a galaxy of glittering stars:

Goalies: Frank Brimsek, Cheevers.

Defensemen: Orr, Bourque, Chara, Brad Park, Shore, Clapper.

Forwards: Bucyk, Marchand, Cashman, Bill Cowley, Bergeron, Esposito, Schmidt, David Krejci, Middleton, David Pastrnak, O'Reilly, Cam Neely.

By Centennial-game face-off on Sunday, the Bruins will have dressed 964 skaters and 112 goalies since their birth. It's probably not by coincidence that the Canadiens will be the visitor, Boston having been Montreal's Bell Centre opponent on Dec. 4, 2009, the 100th anniversary of the latter franchise's pre-NHL founding.

Members of the Boston Bruins pose with the Stanley Cup and their championship banner during a ceremony before the game at the TD Garden on Oct. 6, 2011.

The 85-minute ceremony in Montreal featured a skate-around by some of the Canadiens' greatest names, a bit of shinny and the retirement of the No. 3 of former captain Emile "Butch" Bouchard, 90, and the No. 16 of Elmer Lach, a month shy of 92, who had centered Maurice "Rocket" Richard and Toe Blake on the Punch Line, the most lethal trio of the 1940s.

The Canadiens cruised to a 5-1 victory that emotional, nostalgic night. The Bruins are hoping to ride a similar wave on Sunday, on their bench and in their arena, to repay the favor as they turn back the clock, skate in the present and look to the future, setting off into their second century.

Top photo: Boston Bruins Centennial Legacy Monument at TD Garden after its Saturday unveiling.