BostonBruins.com - While some 50 years have passed since the Big, Bad Bruins ruled Boston, the impact that they had on the city and region lives on. This is the story of that remarkable collection of characters as told by some of the people who experienced their success firsthand.

This story begins well before the 1970 and 1972 Boston Bruins brought Stanley Cup championships to the city and took a region by storm with their rough-and-tumble style on the ice and eccentric personalities off of it.

Boston had always been one of - if not the premier - hockey hotbeds in the United States, dating all the way back to the mid-1800s and through the early 1900s when nearly a million French Canadians immigrated south with many of them settling across New England.

With them, they brought a passion for a sport that by that time had been considered almost exclusively Canadian. Kevin Vautour, a longtime Bruins season ticket holder, grew up in Everett, Massachusetts, and remembers how hockey had become a fabric of that community by the mid-1900s.

Vautour: "There was a tremendous French-Canadian population. St. Joseph's School [ in Everett], they spoke French and the nuns were from Quebec. All throughout New England - in the early 1900s you had a lot of immigration from Canada into the States so they brought the hockey with them. It wasn't a foreign game to us."

Richard Johnson, Curator of The Sports Museum at TD Garden since 1982, said the story of hockey in this region cannot be told without the impact of that immigration around the turn of the century.

Johnson: "It's not insignificant to point out that the largest single ethnic group in the state of Massachusetts is French Canadian, even more so than Irish Americans. The French-Canadian influence is certainly one that has always been a part of the fabric of the region as well."

Given how popular the sport was already becoming by the late 1800s, institutions across the region were beginning to adapt. St. Paul's, a private school in Concord, Massachusetts, built the first ice hockey rink in New England and held the first games in the 1870s.

Johnson: "We were the sports equivalent of another province of Canada. It was fully engrained in our sporting culture here. What was interesting, it was a sport that crossed class lines, cultural lines. It was as much a staple in private schools - the first rinks in New England were built at the St. Paul's School in New Hampshire - alma mater of [Bruins general manager] Don Sweeney as well as Hobey Baker.

"It was sort of a legendary part of that school's culture that they flooded parts of the campus because it's basically built around a pond. They were proud of their hockey rinks. They would put a tarp over them at night to protect the ice. This was true in other schools too…hockey in New England was always a big deal."

It became an even greater deal in 1924 when grocery store magnate Charles Adams founded the Boston Bruins, the first American-based team in the National Hockey League.

Johnson: "Weston Adams, owner of the Bruins, son of team founder Charles Adams, played hockey at Exeter Academy. It's always been a big deal here. And professionally, we not only had the Bruins, of course, as the first American NHL team, we had the Boston Olympics in the Eastern Hockey League playing [from 1940-48]. We had a team named the Boston Tigers that played briefly in the 1920s as well. Pro hockey has always been a big deal in the region. You go down to Rhode Island and people have fond memories of the Reds that played at Rhode Island Auditorium."

The Bruins quickly became a fabric of the Boston community as they went on to win the Stanley Cup in 1929, 1939, and 1941. But by the time the 1960s came around, the team had taken a significant downturn and missed the playoffs - in a six-team NHL - for eight consecutive seasons from 1959-60 through 1966-67.

Vautour: "When you only had a six-team league that was a pretty poor accomplishment for those eight years when you couldn't crack the top four out of six teams. That's how bad it was, but people still went to the games because they loved it. It just proliferated when [Bobby] Orr came and they saw what he was doing."

Indeed, the arrival of Orr changed everything for the Bruins - and hockey in New England. As popular as the sport had been for decades even before the transcendental defenseman burst onto the scene during the 1966-67 season, the blue liner created a buzz around the Bruins that is unlikely to ever be replicated.

Johnson: "You've got to realize - the Bruins had just endured an eight-year period where they were out of the playoffs. And it correlated exactly with the eight straight years that the Celtics had won NBA championships. And we know the team that sold the Garden out was the Bruins because on any given night, you were seeing Gordie Howe or Bobby Hull skating against our guys.

"But when Bobby appears, when he finally gets here after much anticipation, no one had seen anyone like him. It's still true to this day. Has the game sped up and everything? Yeah. If he were at his full power now, would he adapt? I mean, are you kidding? He would be that half a stride quicker, he would be everything.

"The only comparable I could say is if you were a citizen of Salzburg, Austria, and Mozart appeared. You were basically seeing someone as I can only describe as having a vessel of divine intervention. He was that good. A defenseman who was a de facto fourth forward."

During the 10-year period (1966-76) that Orr wore the Spoked-B, he played in seven All-Star Games, won eight consecutive Norris Trophies as the league's top defenseman, captured two Art Ross Trophies as the NHL's scoring champion, and three times took home the Hart Trophy as the league MVP.

Most importantly, he led Boston to two Stanley Cup victories - while winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP during both championship runs - and scored the most famous goal in NHL history in 1970 to capture the Cup.

Vautour: "You have to put things in perspective in this sense - in that era, I can only equate the Bruins with The Beatles. Starting roughly mid-1970, and then they win the Cup, the Bruins actually took over this town. They couldn't go anywhere, do anything, without having a mob involved with them, people chasing them around. They were veritable rock stars."

Following their championship in 1970 - the Bruins' first in 29 years - the Bruins returned in 1971 with their best season in franchise history. Boston went 57-14-7 with 121 points, both of which remain team records.

Despite their record-setting regular season, however, the Bruins ran into quite the unexpected foe against their longtime rivals, the Montreal Canadiens. Rookie goalie Ken Dryden took over between the pipes for the Habs and led Montreal to a shocking seven-game victory over the Black & Gold in the opening round of the playoffs.

Vautour: "That was like a dagger in the fans' hearts. It took a long time to get over that. I was only a young kid then - I probably took it more serious than I should have. But I was bummed out the whole summer. And anyone that knew that I was interested in the Bruins would ask me the question: what happened?

"As the players had to answer, and I'm sure there were a lot of people like me that were interested in the Bruins, we had to answer all summer long - how did they ever lose out in that first round to Montreal, especially since they had dominated them during the season?"

Johnson: "It was a real shock. No one knew much about Ken Dryden…this guy that, yeah, real hockey fans knew him from Cornell because there was a dynasty there, but it was just a genuine shock because that Bruins team scored 399 goals that year, setting a record that's since been broken. But I don't think there was ever a team that every time out, it was like how many goals are they gonna score?

"They knew they were the better team, the Canadiens knew they were the better team. But you play a series and anything can happen. It did."

Given the heartbreak from the previous spring, the Bruins returned for the 1971-72 on a mission. During the regular season, they nearly matched their win and point totals from the year before with 54 and 119, respectively.

Vautour: "You get into early 1971-72 and the opening game against the Rangers, I'm pretty sure they lost, but it was one of those games they didn't seem to be ready. Then things picked up after that and they had a terrific season, broke all kinds of records, as they'd done the previous season. As the season went on, the interest really ramped up. When you're champions in Boston, things ramp up to a different level."

In the postseason, the Bruins beat Toronto in five games during the first round and took down St. Louis in a four-game sweep in the semifinals, before defeating the New York Rangers in six games to capture their second Stanley Cup in three years.

Ken Hodge, who ranked eighth on the team in scoring in 1971-72 with 16 goals and 56 points and fourth on the club in playoff scoring with 9 goals and 17 points, recalled the mindset of that year's team.

Hodge: "The '72 team was almost the comeback. We should've actually had three Stanley Cups, but we only had two out of three. Basically, it was a good time for the guys. We made some great trades during the season. Carol Vadnais came over from the Oakland Seals and strengthened our defensive corps. We just all came together.

"Naturally, we had Bobby and [Phil Esposito]. But it was a great feeling. The only sad thing about it is we had to go to Madison Square Garden to win the damn Cup. We blew it here in the fifth game. It was just too bad because it would have been nice to win it in the old Garden."

From there, Bruins fans like Skip Fryling - a season ticket holder for the last 55 years - thought they had a dynasty on their hands. With Orr and Phil Esposito at the height of their powers, the region was poised for a decade of dominance. But despite another trip to the Stanley Cup Final in 1974 - and two more in 1977 and 1978 against Montreal after Orr left - another championship never came.

Fryling: "We felt they're back and here we go, we're gonna win it…we'll be doing it for a few years to come. But things happen. We thought we had a dynasty. It's not like the Canadiens. They had our number on a few of those playoff years. We tried to avoid the Canadiens if you could...but we still supported them. It was the best show in town."

Indeed, it was. Despite the lack of championships following 1972, the Bruins remained a powerhouse in Boston, as their influence spurred on an explosion of hockey across the city and New England. Dozens of rinks, including the famous Hockeytown on Rt. 1 in Saugus, Massachusetts - which opened in 1971 - began to pop all over the region as the demand for ice time grew exponentially

Johnson: "At [my alma mater] Lawrence Academy, we went from an outdoor rink and we built our indoor rink in 1971, the one they still use actually. That was happening everywhere. Certainly, the game was opening a lot in my hometown of Worcester. We only had one indoor ice surface there, the Worcester Arena. That was supplemented by the Lake Avenue Arena roughly around the same time, '71. And ice time at both those places was 24 hours a day. Basically, you took what you got.

"But in terms of Greater Boston, you talk to people that played at rinks like Hockeytown up on the North Shore…I remember someone describing it, saying the rinks were sprouting up like dandelions on a spring front lawn at that point. That was the effect that those Bruins teams had. If you were in the rink construction business, you were doing pretty well."

Fryling: "Hockey just took off in this area. There was a rink built in the late '60s here in Cohasset called Cohasset Winter Garden. In 1970-71, there was a 2 ½ rink complex opened in Hingham, which is still in operation today. Rinks started popping up all over the place…it was the start of what you see today, the groundswell of kids wanting to play hockey."

Vautour: "The rinks around the area, Everett was outside at that time, the Flynn Rink up in Medford was an outdoor rink, but gradually as time wore on and there was more interest, the rinks started to get enclosed. They got roofs."

Johnny Bucyk: "We knew that was happening and we felt very proud of it. We were just happy to be involved and help them and get the kids off the streets and into the buildings."

The demand for ice time was so great that rinks were staying open 24 hours a day. Ron DeGregorio, a U.S. Hockey Hall of Famer and former Middlebury College goalie, was bringing his pillow to the rink so he could rest in between games.

DeGregorio: "I must have been 15, 16, maybe 17 and I would go over to Chelsea Arena and stay all night because there was 24 hours of hockey because you didn't have any other opportunity to play. People would play 2 in the morning, 3 in the morning. I would bring a pillow - my parents let me do it, I guess. I would stay there the whole night and get to play three or four hours of hockey with the adults because the goaltender was either not there or they got used to me being there.

"In '73, it was a whole new ballgame because we had a lot more rinks and the MDC [Metropolitan District Commission] had grown, the number of rinks had grown, the popularity had grown from the Bobby Orr era and the Stanley Cup wins. It was fantastic."

Vautour: "All of a sudden, if you were a beer league guy, you weren't playing at 6 or 7 o'clock in the evening, your ice time was maybe, if you were lucky, at 11 o'clock at night or 6 o'clock in the morning because you just couldn't get the ice because there was a tremendous interest in the team."

With ice time limited, street hockey also became extremely popular in neighborhoods across Greater Boston.

Vautour: "Street hockey was huge and there were actually leagues. I remember we used to play on Saturday afternoons in a league up behind the Parlin Junior High School on Broadway [in Everett]…you'd have kids from other cities come in and actually play games. It wasn't unusual to go around the city in those days in a car and kids would have to pick up the nets so you could move on because kids were playing in the streets. Street hockey in my neighborhood was huge.

"There was more hockey going on in the basketball courts than there was basketball, especially during the season. There was just a lot of interest. It can all be attributed to the interest in the Bruins pre-Orr that ramped up from Orr on and then everybody wanted to be Bobby Orr.

"I'll never forget this - kids would go out there after Orr scored the goal in 1970 and actually try to recreate what he did. You'd have kids running across from the left side of the rink to the right side, have people tripping to see if they could fly in the air. It was crazy."

The advancement of the sport around New England also led to the formation of dozens of youth hockey programs, among them the Massport Jets out of East Boston, the first girls' ice hockey team in the country. Founded by Tony Marmo in 1970, the Jets became a national powerhouse.

Johnson: "From a purely hockey standpoint, it exploded the game. You had the rinks being built, kids being happy to get ice time at 2 in the morning. You had both boys and girls playing, so you had teams like the Massport Jets who were absolute champions of the continent playing right here in Greater Boston."

DeGregorio, meanwhile, was just starting his stint with USA Hockey as a registrar in 1973. Based out of New England, he began discussions with the Bruins about a program that could help galvanize youth hockey around the region. And after talks with team president Weston Adams, general manager Harry Sinden, and WSBK - or Channel 38 as its best known to B's fans - a deal was struck to create the "Mini 1-on-1" program, which would air during the intermissions of Bruins games.

DeGregorio: "That really brought even more focus to youth hockey interest because kids could not only play at the Garden…but more importantly the kids who played against those kids could see them on television on the ice. We had girls' hockey too which was showcased. It really was a catalyst for a lot of growth during that period for youth hockey and hockey in general because of those victories."

When the initial "Mini 1-on-1" tryout was held in Fitchburg in 1973, DeGregorio was stunned by the mass of people who showed up to participate.

DeGregorio: "We had no idea how many people would show up…I get to Fitchburg - fortunately I was smart enough to say we'll do five different tryouts and try to space them out over three or four hours over two days. Holy mackerel. I got there the first day and it was completely full…it showed the popularity of this thing, which we thought was going to be so, so - we didn't have very much time and marketing or any of that sort of stuff at the time. It just shows you how much interest there was post the 1970, 1972 Stanley Cups."

The power of WSBK was not only immense in showcasing youth hockey through "Mini 1-on-1," but also the Big, Bad Bruins themselves.

Vautour: "Channel 38, you have to give them a tremendous amount of credit, once they took over the broadcasting rights from Channel 56, we went from having no games on TV to having almost all the games on TV. The only games that weren't on TV were the games from the West Coast because of the three-hour difference and they would show them the night after. All of a sudden, you're in all the newspapers, you're on the radio shows. People are talking about you.

"One thing I find very interesting during that era…Saturday nights, if the Bruins were on - most Saturday nights they were on TV - but if they weren't at the Garden, date night became going to somebody's house with a bunch of other couples to watch the game. That's what it was like…I could remember eight or nine of us couples showing up to somebody's house to watch the Bruins.

"For somebody that had started out with the team in 1961, when they were terrible and nobody cared, to see where they were during that era…it boggled my mind to see how many people were interested in the Bruins and the new fans that they had garnered, people that weren't interested in hockey before all of a sudden are becoming huge fans. It was just a fun thing."

Johnson: "Playing without helmets, you saw these guys. When you saw Bobby Orr make a rush up ice you saw his hair flying back. That's not to be downplayed, I think. You were a little closer to it because you could see these guys all the time. Bobby of course was the player who converted a lot of non-hockey fans. My mother who didn't know anything about hockey - I had to explain offsides to her and different things. She would stop what she was doing when we had the TV on in the kitchen when the Bruins were playing.

"He was handsome, talented, shy, very well comported with the media, incredibly generous to his teammates, deflecting credit all the time - and genuinely so. He wasn't conducting a clinic or anything. This is who he was. Having that person as the face of the franchise and then Espo, fun loving, incredibly talented, a bit outspoken - it didn't hurt to be an Italian Canadian playing right next the North End of Boston.

"If you were a Hollywood screenwriter you couldn't have sat down and created a better blend of characters representing different values than what we got with that Bruins team. Give credit to Milt Schmidt for having done a masterful job as GM assembling that group."

Well before the advent of social media and 24/7 news coverage, the Bruins' popularity also grew leaps and bounds because of how accessible they were to the fans.

Vautour: "Everywhere they went, if they were doing autographs at Raymond's or all these old stores that don't exist anymore, they had a huge following there. There were shoe companies in the area that were producing skates. I remember Hyde over in Cambridge used to be a sneaker company - all of a sudden, they're producing hockey skates. The other thing that I think flourished were camps, kids around here going to camps around Greater Boston - Phil Esposito ran a camp, Bobby Orr had a camp up in Ontario, out in Worcester, Gary Doak.

Johnson: "Their camaraderie was obvious. Their togetherness, their brotherhood was right there for everybody to see…they were sort of more of a fabric of the community. There wasn't the economic divide between players and the fans. A lot of those guys worked jobs in the offseason. I remember when they called up defenseman Bill Speer in the 1970 playoffs, I remember him being described on a TV broadcast, they said, 'Well, Bill is a barber from his hometown in Ontario.'

"So, his offseason job was as a barber. When he was called up, he also gave guys haircuts in the locker room…they were a little more connected to the rest of us because these were guys who had jobs - not all of them, but even Bobby Orr had a hockey camp. I would be very surprised if any players now, maybe a rookie, had another job. Why would they with the income they have?

"These guys drank at the same bars that the rest of us did. Would you bump into a group of Bruins players at the Branding Iron, the restaurant that Bobby Orr was a partner in? You bet. At the Iron Horse, the bar that was in the Garden? Yeah. These guys were ubiquitous.

"Eddie Westfall lived in Pelham, New Hampshire, and he was nicknamed the mayor of Pelham he was so popular up there. He was not living in a gated community or anything or shying away from being out there and hanging out with the fans. There was a comfort level there and a connectedness."

The core group, however, began to splinter as the 1970s progressed and the World Hockey Association was founded. Gerry Cheevers left for Cleveland and Derek Sanderson for Philadelphia of the WHA following the 1972 Stanley Cup victory - though both eventually returned later in the decade.

Johnson: "The thing that was a shame about it was it was the last call for that entire group because the WHA broke things up a bit and it was never quite the same after that. They didn't win a Stanley Cup after that - when if they had only kept that team intact, would they have won other Stanley Cups? I think undoubtedly. They're a team known as much for what they achieved as for how close they came, namely the 1971 team, which I think may have been the best team of them all during that time period. We all thought, 'Oh gosh, there will be at least another two Stanley Cups with this group.' But they just couldn't keep them intact."

Vautour: "Then the Braves came along [in 1971] and the Whalers came along [in 1972] and the area got saturated with hockey. After a while, I think people kind of thought this isn't all that great anymore. Took a couple years. They came back in the late '70s but the interest in the team after '72, it died down a little bit. It died down a lot after the 2004-05 lockout.

"But when they won Game 6 at the Garden [in 2008], Marco Sturm scores that late goal, outside after the game on Causeway Street I had never seen it like that since 1972. I had never, ever, ever seen it like that since then. It was unbelievable and I think since 2008 the team has really come back to relevancy again."

Despite what many felt was a premature ending for this magical group of Black & Gold brethren, their legacy and impact have endured. Boston continued to be a force throughout the 1970s and went on to make the playoffs for a record 29 consecutive seasons from 1967-96. And new franchise cornerstones - from Ray Bourque and Cam Neely during the 1980s and 1990s to Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeorn and Brad Marchand during the 2000s and 2010s - took the reins and carried on the tradition set before them.

Marchand: "It's just a legacy you want to continue to help build and be part of. Seeing the guys that have played for the organization before us, it gives you goosebumps whenever you look up there [in the rafters]…you realize the jersey you get to put on and share with the guys before you, it's something we all take a lot of pride in and it's why we all take so much pride in being part of this organization because of not only what we're playing for now but what has been built before us and the legacy that stands and one that we want to continue."

It's an impact that the players of that era didn't quite realize they were having at the time.

Hodge: "We had so much fun in the era that I played with the team that we had and the guys we had…it was a great atmosphere to be a part of the Boston Bruins back in that time. And as you can tell, the explosion of hockey that took place with the MDC rinks being built and everything, it was a great era to be around New England…the legacy that we left in New England with the explosion of hockey and what transpired in college hockey and high school hockey. It was just great. It was just a great time to be in New England. I was very fortunate, my sons played locally.

"I think we took a lot of that for granted because we were so involved in playing the game and we just never knew what was going on around us. We felt it because every time we went out to dinner, out to eat someplace or whatever, we saw what was going on and met the people. But basically, I don't think we really knew what was going on around us at that time.

"Now we sit around and we reflect back on that era and that time and what we accomplished. We admire what the guys are doing today and still continue on the tradition we carried on back in that era."

Bucyk: "I think the biggest thing was we had a good togetherness with the team and with our fans. We never wore masks or helmets so they could identify us real quick. We'd sit there and talk with the people - and the people just fell in love with us. And we loved the fans. They were great. We had great fans back in the '70s. We've got good fans now, but in those years it was different. It was just so much fun. We all enjoyed playing. On the road, we stood together. The team in those years were just unbelievable."

A team that 50 years later still holds a special place in the hearts of so many New Englanders.

Johnson: "The ripple effect of that team, I would argue, the Bruins of those years were the most significant professional sports franchise of any sport on the continent. I don't think you can point to any other team in any other sport and say they had as significant an impact in any number of different regards as these guys did. I don't think they get nearly enough credit for that fact.

"I would still argue that of all the teams I've ever observed playing in Boston, that goes back to the Celtics of the 1960s all the way up to the Brady era, the Brady and Gronk Patriots, these guys absolutely hands down owned the city of Boston. There's no succession of teams that were ever more popular."

Fryling: "I think those teams in that era just galvanized the city and the people around those teams. Everybody wanted to meet them, get to the games, and young kids wanted to grow up and play the game. It was just something that everybody couldn't wait for the Bruins to start every year. When the winter comes, there's not as much to do outside. Everybody looked forward to the ponds freezing and going out and having your own games. More rinks were opening all the time so there was more opportunity for young kids to get into hockey."

DeGregorio: "For those of us who lived during that era - and even those who were told by their grandparents or parents about that team - that was a special team, a special group and it really transcended hockey.

"They were figures that people smile when you mention them. That makes it good for hockey. Undoubtedly, those two teams, that success, the players and the characters that were involved with the team really are part of the lore that keeps people engaged regardless of what may happen on the ice these days.

"It has to start somewhere and it was started here in New England with that team that came about that eventually were so important with those two Stanley Cups in the '70s…they just live on."

Vautour: "What great memories they gave us. It was a wonderful experience to grow up in the 1970s with the Bruins…you actually share memories with these people…if you were going to the game, that was the best thing that was gonna happen to you all week.

"There was a lot of nights I should've been doing my homework and I wasn't because I was listening to the radio…going to a Bruins game meant something. It's part of my life. For me, it's my family and the Bruins. Hard to believe, but that's the way it is."

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