Chara revels in 'greatest honor' as Bruins retire defenseman's No. 33

BOSTON -- The sound swelled, as it had on that night in 2019, before Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final, the whistles and claps and cheers, the adulation pouring down from the highest reaches of TD Garden, cascading onto the ice.

This time, though, Zdeno Chara was wearing a suit. This time, Chara’s face was fully visible. This time, as he sat in a semi-circle of chairs across from some of the greatest Boston Bruins of all time, with a giant gold No. 33 behind him, Chara was received in a new way.

“He’s a legend,” as Ray Bourque put it.

With seven players whose numbers had previously been retired alongside him -- Bourque, Terry O’Reilly, Willie O'Ree, Rick Middleton, Johnny Bucyk, Cam Neely, and Bobby Orr – with many of his teammates from the 2011 Stanley Cup champion Bruins in the building, with the current Bruins all wearing No. 33 on the bench, the Hall of Fame defenseman’s number was raised to the rafters of TD Garden in Boston on Thursday, retired, only his for the rest of time.

“It feels surreal,” Chara told the crowd.

He could not wipe the smile off his face.

“Wearing this jersey in front of you all was the greatest honor,” Chara added.

In response, a “Thank you, Chara!” chant spread throughout TD Garden, a moment that Chara said brought him near tears. It was then that emcee Andrew Ference finished the ceremony, ushering Chara and his family to the banner, which had been carried onto the ice by five teammates from 2011 in Patrice Bergeron, Mark Recchi, David Krejci, Dennis Seidenberg and Tuukka Rask.

As his wife and three kids worked the ropes, Chara stepped back, his eyes tracing the banner as it lifted to its place between the numbers of O’Reilly and Bourque. As it neared the ceiling, the music swelled and the cheers swelled in turn.

Asked about that moment later, he said, “I’m speechless. Literally, I am speechless. It’s one of those things that no matter how much times you picture it or imagine it, when it’s actually happening, it’s so much better and so much nicer.

“It’s emotional, it’s satisfaction, it’s a place where you are standing and you are there with your family, but I felt like I was standing there with so many other people who helped me.”

It has been a tremendous past year for Chara, with his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame coming in November, with his rejoining the organization as hockey operations advisor and mentor, with his number retirement making him the 18th and final player to wear 33 for the Bruins.

“Everything he’s accomplished -- let’s not kid ourselves -- he earned every ounce of it by his discipline and by the way that he persevered, by the way that he conducted himself on and off the ice,” Bergeron said.

Chara, who holds the record for games played by a defenseman in NHL history with 1,680, seventh among all skaters, played 1,023 games in Boston, where he was the captain for 14 seasons and won the 2009 Norris Trophy as the best defenseman in the NHL. He scored 481 points (148 goals, 333 assists) with the Bruins, part of the 680 (209 goals, 471 assists) he scored for four teams -- New York Islanders, Ottawa Senators, Bruins and Washington Capitals -- over his career.

But it was on the Bruins that he made the most indelible mark.

“I think they became the Bruins again,” Bourque said, of the teams Chara led after he signed in Boston as a free agent on July 1, 2006, changing the trajectory of the franchise.

Chara led the Bruins to the Stanley Cup Final three times, winning in 2011, but it was that moment in 2019 that Thursday night seemed to mirror. That night, June 6, was when Chara stood on the TD Garden ice with a full face shield covering the multiple jaw fractures he had sustained one game earlier.

“I’m lined up on the blue line next to him, starting the game, and I’ll just never forget how deafening that noise was,” defenseman Charlie McAvoy said. “It was the loudest I’d ever heard TD Garden, the stakes as high as they were. It was just amazing. He wasn’t going to be denied the chance to play in that game.

“I think that kind of wrapped it all up, who he was as a person, the toughness that he had.”

That was what they all remembered on Thursday, the toughness, the mental strength, the work ethic, the sheer force of making himself into not just a hockey player, not just an NHL player, but one of the greatest of all time, and bringing his teammates with him.

As forward David Pastrnak said, “There was no other way than follow him.”

During his speech, Chara listed the name of every member of the 2011 Bruins team, allowing the crowd to cheer each and every one. It was as telling a moment about how Chara led, about how he treated and respected his teammates, over his career.

He was, for so many, their north star.

He had molded not just himself, but others. He schooled Bergeron on leadership and tutored McAvoy on defense. He made Bruins practices formative – coach Marco Sturm chuckled on Thursday as he recalled the in-practice fight Chara had with a teammate during his first season in Boston to wake them up and demand their understanding of what it would take to be on the Bruins.

“If he told you that you had to go 100 miles an hour, he would go 101, just to make sure that you knew that the ceiling was set,” Ference said. “He was somebody who did lead by action and would never say something or ask something that he wasn’t willing to do himself. That’s leadership.”

Chara mentioned in his speech on Thursday that while he had wanted to wear No. 3, he knew upon arrival that it was unavailable, retired for Lionel Hitchman. So he asked for 33, without understanding just how important that number already was in Boston, as the one worn for so long by Larry Bird.

It was yet another moment of serendipity for a player who fit so perfectly, so seamlessly into Boston, into the Bruins. He had signed with them on that summer day in 2006, a decision he said had to be made in minutes, given the whirlwind of free agency.

But it was decision he had made after doing his homework, with an understanding that this could be the best possible marriage. It was.

“You have to take a risk … but I also was not reckless with that decision,” Chara said. “I knew that that’s where I wanted to go because there were these opportunities of possibly leading the team, there was desperation to get better, the history, and obviously the living [in Boston]. I saw that would be a good fit. And it ended up being the best decision I ever made.”