Chara Feeling Grateful for Opportunity to Return to the Ice

BostonBruins.com- During this time of unprecedented crisis, Zdeno Chara is feeling fortunate. While the 43-year-old's hockey career has been put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a silver lining to his nearly three-month stretch at home.

Some quality family time with wife Tatiana, daughter Elliz, and twin sons Zach and Ben has been a much-needed reprieve for the Bruins captain and has helped him maintain perspective following the NHL's Return-to-Play format announcement on Tuesday afternoon.

"We have to be grateful for the opportunity that we're getting when you look at the real-life perspective, what other people's families, businesses are going through," Chara said during a media conference call on Thursday morning. "We're getting the opportunity to almost start where we ended the season. Not everybody is getting the same chance.

"A lot of people lost a lot of financial support; businesses went down and they will never get the same opportunity. We have to be grateful for the opportunity and take it as a huge motivation and excitement and embrace it."

With so much loss across the country - and the globe - Chara has made it a point to appreciate what he has during these uncertain times.

"When you look at the big picture, this becomes very uncomfortable for many of us," said Chara. "It's affected so many people. I'm so grateful that I have family and that I've been able to spend some time with them and everyday play with my kids and see them interact and keep improving in their skills.

"When you have a setback like this, you want to also step back and take a breather from the days or the routine you were involved with for so long. It makes you realize that things are not always gonna be perfect. There are gonna be some challenges in your life."

Chara and his family drove back to Boston this week after spending most of the shutdown at their residence in Florida. With voluntary workouts expected to begin sometime in early June, Chara felt it was best to return home to ramp up his preparations.

"It's nice that we're moving forward," said Chara. "I think there's still some work to be done in the process, getting other pieces in place…I think that all of us are trying to do our best to stay in shape and be active and follow the routines that were given to us by our strength and conditioning coaches, which they've done an amazing job for us.

"I think that because of the different locations and different opportunities that each and every one of us have we have to obviously acclimate and kind of adjust to different equipment or different sites.

"But I think everyone is doing a good job staying fit. It will be nice to kind of get back together even in small groups after such a long time."

Chara noted that he couldn't be completely sure that this is the longest period of time he has spent off the ice, saying that early on in his career with the New York Islanders there may have been similar two-month stretches at the start of the offseason. But he does know that as the players get back on the ice they will have to pace themselves to avoid strains, pulls, and other injuries.

"If you're a runner and you haven't been running for two months, I don't think you're gonna go for a first run and it's gonna be a 20K run," said Chara. "I think it's gonna be slowly getting into it…that's key that we have to manage the workload we're gonna be doing the first few sessions. Then just slowly adding to those practices.

"I think that even if you've been away for two-plus months, I think it will come back fairly quickly. We've done this for so long, for so many years. It's just kind of second nature to us. I think it will take a few days, maybe weeks, but eventually everything will be fine."

Chara acknowledged that a return to the rink does pose some risks given the uncertainty surrounding the virus, but he hopes that the league and the players will work together to create the safest possible environment.

"I think these are the questions that still need to be processed," said Chara. "I think after this approval of format there is gonna be, I'm sure, other steps that need to be gone over. I'm sure this is one of those things that all the people have to be aware of, the safety and health of the players, staff, coaches, and all the players around working on this.

"There is definitely risk involved. I think we all have to realize that you have to accept risk in your lives and I'm sure even without this pandemic, every time you step on the ice there is a risk of getting injured or some kind of things can happen. Obviously, this will be different, something that hit us really hard.

"Nobody still can guarantee that 100 percent nothing will happen. There is gonna be risk involved. We just have to manage what kind of risk we are willing to accept."

If the season does in fact resume at some point this summer, the Bruins have earned a bye into the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs thanks to their Presidents' Trophy-winning campaign (40-14-12, 100 points). That does not mean, however, that they will automatically have the top seed in the East, as the Bruins must play a round-robin against Tampa Bay, Washington, and Philadelphia ahead of the first round to determine final seeding.

"I think that it's never a perfect scenario," said Chara. "It's never gonna be set in stone as you would have after an 82-game regular season. I think you have to give these guys a lot of credit because they worked extremely hard to come up with a format that's been presented…I think that you have to realize that anytime you have this kind of unexpected stoppage with teams being at different points of their peaks of the season and different amount of games you have to come up with some sort of solution.

"People involved were almost talking daily to the player reps, players, different advisors to come up with the best possible solution. I think at this point, it does affect everyone and every team. It's one of those things that you can't really blame anyone or feel that it's unfair."