Neely
Originally I was going to write some big, weepy, ode-to-my-childhood piece about Cam Neely's election to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
No one personified the Bruins of the late 1980s and early '90s like Neely. If you didn't see him back in the day, think of him as the Jason Varitek of his era. He was reliable, he was clutch, he wanted nothing more than to be out there and help his team, the team fed off his energy, and oh yeah, he could slap the pretty boys around.
But the more I thought about Neely, the more the depth of the Bruins' fall from grace in Boston hit me.
For all you young'uns, this might be hard to believe, but the Bruins once more or less owned the city. The peak happened before I was born, when they won the Stanley Cup in 1970 and 1972, but growing up in the 80s, the Bruins and Celtics kept the city alive and kicking all winter long, well into the spring, and almost into the summer. The Red Sox didn't really capture the area's full attention until the Bruins and Celtics were done with their playoff runs (If you don't believe that, check out the Fenway attendance the night Roger Clemens struck out 20 Mariners on April 29, 1986: 13,114). And the Patriots were a distant fourth in town until Bill Parcells arrived.
Right up until the moment that Adam Vinatieri's field goal went through the uprights to beat the Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI, my favorite Boston sports memory was that of the Bruins finally beating Montreal in the playoffs in 1988. There were three big "jinxes" in Boston sports in the 80s -- The Orange Bowl jinx, where the Pats went two decades without winning in Miami before clobbering the Dolphins in the Jan. 1986 AFC title game; the the Montreal jinx, and the other one I don't need to expound upon. The Bruins hadn't eliminated Montreal from the postseason in 45 years and had lost to the Habs four straight years in the first round when they finally won, which, when you're 15 like I was at the time, is an eternity.
But the Bruins' run under Neely, Ray Bourque and Andy Moog has been pretty much swept aside in Boston's sports history, and why? Because they never won the Cup. Management never put up the money to get that extra scorer or two to get over the top. And yes, the Edmonton Oilers of the 1980s were an offensive juggernaut like no other, but they were bumped off by Calgary in 1986 and weren't invincible.
The Bruins started on the long, slow slide to where they are today (without even bringing into account the entire mess of an NHL labor situation) around the time Neely's career wound to its painful conclusion. Everyone knows the deal: The Bruins won't spend, jack the ticket prices through the roof, let their best players leave town, and on the odd occasions they do decide to spend money, they do things like sign Marty Lapointe for $5 million a year. It's been one long comedy of errors.
But I still think this is a hockey town at heart in the winter, and that's coming from someone who loves college hoops. The Bruins are the butt of jokes about attendance, and deservedly so. But Bruins and Celtics attendance is comparable, and though they both draw putrid TV ratings, Bruins games tend to draw double the ratings of Celtics games. What has really done a number on the Bruins at the gate, something that rarely gets brought up, is the explosion of minor-league hockey in the area. Why would a working dad with kids spend about $300 to bring his family to a Bruins game on Thursday when he can take them to Providence, Worcester, Lowell, Manchester, Portland, Hartford or Bridgeport for a fraction of the cost on Friday? And that does even bring all the top-notch Division 1 college programs into the mix.
Remember the level of interest in both of the Bruins-Montreal playoff series in 2002 and 2004? It was palpable. You could feel Boston hockey fans desperately wanting to care about the Bruins again. Then Jose Theodore shut the B's down in 2002 and they completely spit the bit in 2004. Actually the Bruins might be lucky in a weird way that the strike has erased memories of that collapse. That Game 7 loss, after blowing a 3-1 series lead, on the same Patriots' Day the Sox rallied to beat the Yanks to take 3 of 4 and the Pats signed Corey Dillon, was among the most embarrassing defeats for any sports team in this city's history.
But that's the thing with the Bruins. It's always about what could have and should have been. And as much as I thrilled to watching Neely get his Gordie Howe hat tricks (a goal, an assist and a fight) seemingly every night as a teenager, all I could think about was how they never got that extra scorer or two, never got Neely his Cup, and things have been all downhill since.
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