Inside the Making of Chara’s Historic Banner-Raising Night 

BOSTON –– Samantha McGraw and Evan O’Brien stood at ice level, headsets strapped on, as Zdeno Chara’s No. 33 was raised to the TD Garden rafters.

It was a moment they had envisioned, planned, reworked and perfected for the past five months.

​A night of gold carpets, speeches, alumni appearances, video montages, and, of course, the unveiling of Chara’s banner, was thought out step by step, detail by detail, to make it a memorable celebration for both the fans and the 6-foot-9 man of the hour.

​McGraw, who is the Senior Manager for Live Events and Creative Marketing for the Boston Bruins, and O’Brein, who is the Game Presentation Manager, took this event personally, and it only benefited those in attendance and watching from home.

“The unique thing about planning a ceremony for Zdeno is we all lived through his career and were fans of the team throughout his career and cheered him on as a player,” McGraw said. “We all knew the backstory really well and knew his history, so it was really easy for us to think of special elements to add to the ceremony to make it unique to Zdeno.”

​One of the first choices McGraw, O’Brien and their team made was finding a host. It did not take long to land on Andrew Ference, who was Chara’s long-time defensive partner and fellow 2011 Stanley Cup Champion. The energy, no doubt, was there.

“He just has a really natural personality for something like this,” McGraw said. “He was a unanimous decision, and I think one of the best decisions that we’ve made so far.”

Chara’s No. 33 marked the 13th number raised to the rafters in the Bruins’ 100-plus history. There is a general template for what a ceremony like this looks like, but the B’s ensured the night was hyper-specific to Chara. Ference fed into that mindset.

“It is going to entail lots of speaking, it’s going to entail some video content, and, obviously, the banner going up. But a lot of it is, ‘How can you tailor it to Zee?’” O’Brien said. “Knowing the moments that, as a fan, impacted you the most – you’re in the fans’ shoes. And really, this is for Zdeno, but you get that reaction from the fans and being able to give them what they’re looking for.”

Feedback from Chara himself was a useful tool for McGraw and O’Brien, too. There was a constant flow of communication with the former captain. Chara did not have many requests, but his main ask was to include his teammates. The defenseman, who skated in the Black & Gold for 14 seasons, does not see the accolade as solely his achievement.

​That is why Chara was joined on the ice by a number of the Bruins he hoisted the Stanley Cup with – including Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, Tuukka Rask, Mark Recchi and Dennis Seidenberg, who carried the No. 33 banner out. Chara also read out the names of all of the 2011 roster in his speech.

“I think with a lot of number retirement ceremonies, it’s very centered around that individual player. But what we’ve learned by working with Zdeno and listening to him speak is that he’s very humble,” McGraw said. “His teammates meant the world to him – especially that 2011 team – so making sure they were well represented throughout this celebration was really important to him, which made it important to us to incorporate.”​

It was more than just the players that impacted Chara’s legendary career, and the Bruins wanted to highlight that as well. Jim Martin returned to TD Garden to serve in his old role as public announcer for the occasion. Martin was on the microphone for the B’s from 1993 up until his retirement in 2019, but came back for the momentous night.

“We thought that would be a unique element because he essentially was the voice behind the team for all of Zdeno’s playing career,” McGraw said.

Jack Edwards also got an intentional nod during Ference’s opening remarks for being the soundtrack of the team when Chara made his mark in Boston. Edwards retired in 2024 after 19 years as the Bruins’ play-by-play broadcaster on New England Sports Network; “making sure he was represented because of the moments he brought to life for the fans who were not in the building, we thought that was important,” McGraw said.

All ticket holders went home with a Chara bobblehead as a souvenir from the historic evening. O’Brien led the charge with that project, working with the team’s regular vendors to sculpt the mold, plan the paint, make tweaks to the look and choose the stats that would be included on the bobblehead.

The four they went with were: 1,680 games played (seventh all-time and most by a defenseman), 2011 Stanley Cup Champion, 2009 Norris Trophy winner and 2025 Hockey Hall of Fame Inductee.​

While 17,850 people got to experience the ceremony in person, McGraw and O’Brien had to focus on how it would translate to those at home, too. Their group worked closely with NESN and 98.5 the Sports Hub to coordinate how it would translate to television and radio, and what content to show when. All of the Chara video montages shown were cut in-house; O’Brien said they worked with some agencies to help with the effects and add finishing touches.

“It is a true team-wide initiative,” McGraw said. “It really reaches four or five different departments within the Bruins organization to pull something like this off. Not to mention our operations team on the building side that has a huge hand in making sure that our ceremonies run well.”

McGraw said the night would not be possible without their colleagues, especially Elizabeth Argento (Assistant Manager, Game Presentation & Events), Michael Bieke (Senior Manager, Technical Director at TD Garden) and Andrea Mazzarelli (Vice President, Marketing) who all played a "massive role" in Thursday's success.

​The No. 33 that is now hanging from the TD Garden rafters was delivered early this week from New England Flag & Banner. The local company, which has been in business since 1892, has made all of the banners in the arena “since the beginning of time,” said Ned Flynn, who is the owner.

New England Flag & Banner specializes in producing hand-sewn applique banners, which involves the process of layering different colored fabrics and stitching and cutting the design. Flynn grew up as a Bruins fan and watched Chara throughout his career.

“To know that we in some way had something to do with putting together the object that is going to memorialize that is something that gives us a tremendous amount of pride,” Flynn said.

“The banners up in the rafters, I’ve always felt, are for the fans. Banners are obviously a symbol of a particular team or a particular player. And when you look up there and see, for example, the 2011 Stanley Cup Champions, you remember all the players on that team…For this particular one, we are all going to think about the greatness of Zdeno Chara. What a captain he was, what a great human being he is, what a leader he was.”

It took between 18 and 20 hours to complete the banner, Flynn said. There is the layout, stenciling, sewing, cutting of both sides, and then piping the fabric around a circular aluminum tube. There was an extra step in the Chara piece, though.​

When the Boston Celtics won the 2008 NBA Championship, Flynn and his colleagues thought of a way to personalize the banner that no one would notice but them.

“One of the teammates said, ‘Why don’t we put a lucky penny under our label and we’ll sew it in? That was the first banner we did it in, and now we do it inside of the label of more prestigious banners…Certainly something like this,” Flynn said.

As Chara, his family, teammates and thousands of Bruins fans watched the banner (with the lucky penny) take its rightful place in TD Garden, it was a moment of reflection. For all Chara did for the organization, for the city, for the sport of hockey. And how much it has meant to every single person who got to experience his unmatchable era.

It was a project of a lifetime for McGraw and O’Brien – and not one they take for granted.

“It is almost surreal to be in it. Sometimes I struggle with it during the ceremonies; you can’t take a step back and look at what you’re doing because you’re actively doing it. So to take that step back, either after a ceremony or postgame watching it back, I think that is when it hits me where you’re like, ‘Holy crap, we did that,’” O’Brien said.

“You don’t think you’d ever get to do something like this because there’s a small number of jobs like this in the NHL and sports, really. To be able to do that for somebody like Zee is incredible.”