Brad Marchand gave Bruins fans chirps, cheers — and an underdog story worth rooting for
“You only have a certain amount of time to play this game and every day that I’m in it, I’m gonna leave it all out there and try to get better.”
Halifax sits more than 650 miles away from Boston.
But it didn’t take very long for Bruins fans to accept a 5-foot-9 winger out of Nova Scotia as one of their own.
From his first shifts on the TD Garden ice as a member of the cantankerous Merlot line, Brad Marchand was about as subtle as a gloved jab to Daniel Sedin’s jaw.
Marchand’s reputation as an on-ice antagonist — just as happy to shred a player’s mental fortitude via verbal barbs as he was snapping pucks into twine — made him a divisive figure across the league.
Or better put: a reviled heel just about anywhere outside of Boston.
Marchand — and a Bruins fandom that has long placed a premium on will, drive, and an affinity for trash-talk — wouldn’t have had it any other way.
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“I have done things that have stepped over that line, and I’ve paid the price for it,” Marchand, who’s racked up an NHL-leading eight suspensions over $1 million in fines, said in an essay penned in The Players’ Tribune in April 2018. “But you know what? There’s a lot of people out there in the hockey world who love to say, ‘Winning is everything. It’s the only thing.’ But do they really mean it? How far are they willing to go?
“Maybe it was my size, or just the way I was born, but I’ve always felt like you have to be willing to do anything — literally anything — in order to win. Even if that means being hated. Even if it means carrying around some baggage. If I played the game any other way, you absolutely would not know my name. You wouldn’t care enough to hate me, because I wouldn’t be in the NHL.”
Bruins fans have had plenty to cheer for during a two-decade contention window — one held ajar by players whose sweaters will one day sit high above the frozen sheet on Causeway Street.
Zdeno Chara was the imposing captain who commanded respect.
Patrice Bergeron was the individual we all aspired to be.
But Marchand was the one Bruins fans all cheered for.
Boston has never been one to renounce antagonists who don their team’s colors, or shirk at whatever venom their favorite players doled out in the heat of competition.
It’s why any Bruins highlight reel is usually inundated with clips of Cam Neely slamming skaters into glass, Terry O’Reilly stamping another ticket to the sin bin, or Mike Milbury rearranging a Rangers fan’s face with a loafer.
It’s the reason why nearly every sports bar from Barnstable to Bar Harbor has a photo of Jason Varitek shoving his glove in Alex Rodriguez’s maw — and why fans relished Kevin Garnett and Pedro Martinez’s intensity to the same degree as their play.
And in Marchand, Bruins fans had their next trump card: a player whom opponents loved to hate, and opposing fan bases despised even more.
Armed with a sharp wit, an even sharper wrist shot, and an insatiable desire to be a fly in the ointment, Marchand quickly became a household name in this market.
You know the highlights, especially the post-whistle antics and quotables that usually stand at the forefront of any discourse regarding the divisive winger.
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There’s the sight of Marchand using Sedin’s head as a speedbag during Game 6 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final — an act that prompted a simple response from the Bruins pugilist when asked why he did it.
“Because I felt like it,” Marchand noted.
There’s the sight of Marchand licking both Leo Komarov and Ryan Callahan during the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs, dragging players into Boston’s bench, and doing his best Conor McGregor impression after an overtime goal.
But to focus solely on Marchand’s antics and the chaos he unleashed on each shift only tells part of the story as to why he was cherished in Boston.
Because in a city where heart and effort are valued over outright talent, Marchand penned the ideal underdog story.
“His career is amazing, really. He’s not the guy who went first overall who was destined for greatness, and I think that’s why his story is so incredible because he worked for everything he got,” Charlie McAvoy said of Marchand last year. “And what he is now is a product of that work and sort of finding what he can do and then never being satisfied with how he got he was. He’s still the hardest worker that I’ve ever played with.”
Initially tabbed as a fourth-line stalwart, Marchand carved out a path to the top of Boston’s depth chart via a steady dose of swagger, an unremitting fear of complacency, and the weight of a permanent chip on his shoulder.
What Marchand lacked in size and top-line pedigree, he made up for with his desire to put opposing skaters under duress and dismantle defensive structures with an array of dekes and dangles.
His willingness to toe the line between pest and playmaker gave Boston the best of both worlds for 16 years, with most of that tenure spent stabled alongside Bergeron, seemingly the antithesis of Marchand’s rapscallion reputation.
“There’s been a few conversations about some of the things that have been done from him,” Bergeron said of Marchand in a Sportsnet interview in November 2022. “I can’t say I always can control his temper. I try at times, but he’s gotten so much better over the years. It makes him who he is, too, he just plays with his heart on his sleeve. Most nights he’s the heartbeat of our team as well. You don’t want to change that too much, either, so it’s a fine line.”
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The jabs, slew-foots, chirps, and licks are why Marchand’s visage might be printed on every t-shirt stand propped up on Causeway Street.
The reason why No. 63 will eventually join the likes of No. 37, 33, and other Bruins legends in the Garden rafters in due time lies in his legacy of proving the doubters wrong.
As he pursues another shot at a Stanley Cup in South Florida this spring, the 2006 third-round pick closes out his 16-year run in Boston etched in the record books.
No player donning the spoked-B has ever lit the lamp in the postseason as much as Marchand. With 56. Five of those came against Vancouver en route to Boston’s first Stanley Cup in 39 years.
His 12 straight seasons of 20+ goals stands as a franchise record, while his 422 goal trail only Johnny Bucyk (545), Phil Esposito (459), and Bergeron (427) in Bruins history.
Never one to avoid betting on himself, Marchand will get yet another chance to prove people wrong in the coming months with Florida. What happens after this latest playoff push remains to be seen. But whatever’s next, it’ll be dictated by Marchand’s terms.
“It’s very easy to get complacent in this game and it’s very easy to get comfortable,” Marchand said last season. “And it’s probably one of my biggest fears in this game. … You never know when your last day is going to come in this league. … You only have a certain amount of time to play this game and every day that I’m in it, I’m gonna leave it all out there and try to get better.”
Such a musing stands as the perfect encapsulation of a player like Brad Marchand.
The fourth-line pest who became a top-line star.
The former captain whose affinity for tormenting opponents was dwarfed only by his will to elevate himself and his teammates.
The kid from Nova Scotia who — by his own mettle and heart — became more of a Bostonian than he ever could have imagined.
