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How the Bruins found their way back to Boston

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By John Buccigross
Special to ESPN.com

For the first time in eight years, Boston cares about its hockey team.

I mean REALLY cares. I mean, "Let's go drink a six pack of Narragansett and go see the B's play tonight!" care.

HIT THE ICE by Michael Fischer
TOONS ON ICE Hockey (www.toonsonice.com)
The last time the Bruins really mattered was the 1993-94 season. Cam Neely scored his 50th goal in the team's 43rd game. On one leg. Adam Oates had 80 assists. Ray Bourque won the last of his five Norris Trophies. They were playing in the Boston Garden. Fred Cusick was doing the television play-by-play, and a late trade for big, bad Al Iafrate looked like gold after No. 43 registered 13 points in 12 games. They opened the playoffs by beating the Canadiens. Bourque's goal past Patrick Roy's glove in Game 7 was one of his Top 3 Bruin moments.

It's been all slush since. The lockout. The closing of the Garden. The end of Neely's career. Blaine Lacher. The arena that isn't the Garden. Fred Cusick and Bob Wilson don't broadcast games anymore. Empty yellow seats. Steve Kasper. Bourque is traded. Good seats for a family of five are half a mortgage payment -- to watch Antti Laaksonen.

The team that owned the city for most of the previous thirty years became as relevant as the cast of "Saved by the Bell."

That all changed on January 5. In front of 17,565 fans and a regional television audience on ABC, P.J. Stock engaged in what might be the greatest fight in Boston Bruins history with Stephen Peat of the Washington Capitals.

I know this sounds disrespectful to a lineage of Roody Poo Bruins that includes O'Reilly, Neely, Wensink, Jonathan, Cashman, Miller, Shore, and Byers. And Troy Mallette's single-punch flattening of Murray Baron during the 1996-97 season, when he knocked the Montreal defenseman out cold behind the net, might be the fiercest knockout.

What Stock did, however, woke up a region. 71 punches in 40 seconds. Before NHL2Night began that night, I rolled the tape of the bout back and slowed the fight down frame by frame so I could count a flurry of lefts from Stock. Sixteen in a row.

Stocks flailing arms have been jumper cables to New England hockey fans. A jolt of energy to an organization perceived as distant and apathetic through it's front office maneuverings. Stock's following was already in place before his Saturday afternoon special, but that bout etched him in Boston Bruins lore for eternity. Twelve days later, his energy infusion even inspired Byron Dafoe to offer a goaltender beatdown to Ottawa's Patrick Lalime. Bruins games are events once again.

Stock began this week last on the Bruins statistical sheet. Thirty two games, no points. However, no one on the Bruins roster provides more energy, especially at home games, than the 26-year-old Quebec-born winger. A hibernating fan base is waking up. And as they wipe the crust from their eyes they are looking twice to make sure it's 2002 and not 1972.

The Bruins are led by a big center who is among the league leaders in scoring. He is surrounded by big forwards who are talented and tough.

The goalie is a gambling gunslinger who will drop his gloves if he has to. Half of the 18 players who dress will fight at any time. They are largely players in their primes. Some entering, some in the middle, some nearing the end.

And they have the personality of a P.J. Stock.

P.J. and the Bears.

Oddly, the one thing they don't have that is keeping them from top-shelf NHL status is a player at the position they owned over last century -- an All-Star defenseman. Eddie Shore, Bobby Orr, Brad Park (+68 with Boston in 1977-78), and Raymond Bourque.

Perhaps, the Bruins can overcome that.

Overcome. That's the word. Can they overcome their lack of a dynamic puck rusher? Can they overcome, like 5-foot-10 Stock does when he drops his gloves with men bigger than him EVERY FIGHT? Can they overcome a front office and it's penchant for bugging its fan base by trading away popular and talented players, instead of acquiring reinforcements when a battle is deemed winnable.

They never fully supported Bourque, Neely and Moog in their window of opportunity. Bourque had to go west as an old hockey man to find his glory. What will Mike O'Connell do? Will he trade away his unrestricted-free-agent-to-be Bill Guerin? The embodiment of a Bruin. If they don't want to pay him $7 million a year next year, fine, let him walk. But, don't sacrifice this season. It's the same thing in Chicago with Tony Amonte. Don't pop the balloon when it took so long to blow it up.

The Boston Bruins haven't won a Stanley Cup since 1972 because they haven't gone for the green in two. Like Chip Beck, they've always laid up. Well, at the 50-game mark the players have hit a 300-yard drive. They have brought passion, enthusiasm and spirit back to their hockey city, sparked by the old-school Stock.

It's the front office's turn now. What will management do? History shows they will lay up. If they do, every drop of blood P.J. Stock has shed this year will have been in vain.

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Minnesota Wild 49 GP - 17 W - 8 T - 21 L - 3 OTL- 45 P
(8.Los Angeles 47 GP/51 P [6 Punkte vor Minnesota])
Wes Walz 41 GP - 9 G - 10 A - 19 P - 25 PIM
Jeremy Roenick 47 GP - 14 G - 34 A - 48 P - 46 PIM