McQuaid: Glad rookie Hamilton moved in with me

Boston Bruins defenseman Adam McQuaid is already a veteran of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, including winning a Stanley Cup with the Bruins in 2011 and approaching 50 postseason games for his career before his 27th birthday.

This postseason, McQuaid, 26, has been a staple of Boston's third defensive pairing, providing a shut-down presence for Claude Julien. In the Eastern Conference Final, McQuaid scored the series-winning goal in a stunning four-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

McQuaid has been gracious enough to agree to keep a player blog that will appear on NHL.com throughout the Stanley Cup Final.

In his latest installment, McQuaid talks about taking in rookie defenseman Doug Hamilton, who turned 20 on June 17, as a roommate for the season.

I was asked when Dougie made the team if I would be interested in taking him in and having him live with me. I can just imagine at that age to not only play in the NHL but be living in a big city, living on your own for the first time and trying to figure all that out, it would be a pretty big jump for anybody to have all those things going on. I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to help him out and just try to ease the transition a little bit.

I didn't stay with anybody when I first came up to Boston, but my first two years in Providence, I had a roommate, so I knew what that was like, and I knew my first year would have been pretty tough if I had to go it alone. You try to put yourself in other people's shoes. I have been through a lot of those situations before and I felt that it would have been tough for me to do it on my own and I felt like I could help him make the transition a little bit easier.

I'm not trying to be like a parent, but just a friend to ease the transition and lighten the load a little bit. It's been nice just to have someone around. The two of us have very similar personalities; we're both pretty quiet and we both enjoy not doing a whole lot, just relaxing and watching TV, so we have similar interests that way. It's been good.

Every experience for him is a new experience, so it is exciting that way; you get to relive some of your first experiences in the NHL. I think we all realize how fortunate we are to be in the position we are to be playing in the NHL, that it is something that so many guys are trying to get here, and once you get here, you have to work that much harder to stay here. So, to be reminded of the excitement of the first game, the first goal, those things are always exciting and it is great to see guys go through that. You remember how exciting it was for yourself. Dougie is a great player and is going to be a big part of this team for a long time.

We try to work together on all the chores, take turns on all that stuff. Sometimes we do takeout when it comes to dinner. It depends on what the schedule is like. There's times when we might not feel like cooking. There are times when we will pick up food and cook in, maybe more than other guys. I like to cook a bit; I don't mind it at all. I'm not a chef by any means, but I can cook all the basics. It was fun to start to go through that with him, teach him a few different things. He picked up on things pretty quick.

I'm not sure I have a signature dish, but stir fry is pretty simple to make. You get your vegetables, your chicken and your steak or whatever.