Chara signing with Bruins among stories shared at Hockey Hall Fan Forum

The 2025 Hockey Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be held on Monday in Toronto (8 p.m. ET; NHLN, TSN), with Jennifer Botterill, Zdeno Chara, Brianna Decker, Duncan Keith, Jack Parker, Daniele Sauvageau and Joe Thornton making their acceptance speeches. Alexander Mogilny, another inductee, will not be in attendance. On Sunday, Botterill, Chara, Decker, Keith and Thornton participated in the Inductee Fan Forum:

TORONTO -- Zdeno Chara left an impression on the Boston Bruins that will last forever.

But the defenseman's decision to sign with the Bruins on July 1, 2006, was made in a matter of minutes.

"When I became a free agent back then, we were not allowed to explore the cities and teams [ahead of time]," Chara said Sunday. "We basically had one phone line and my agent said, 'Hey, you have to be ready to make a decision because when [free agency] opens at noon, we don't know who is going to call."

Of course, the Bruins called and Chara signed a five-year contract, a move that put him on course to be a Boston legend and member of the Hockey Hall of Fame with the Class of 2025.

Chara told that story during the Inductee Fan Forum, an event started in 1999 as a suggestion of Wayne Gretzky where fans get to ask the electees in the Player category their questions.

Not even an early-November snowstorm could keep the fans from packing the Great Hall to ask their questions of Chara, Joe Thornton, Duncan Keith, Brianna Decker and Jennifer Botterill. The hourlong event featured plenty of laughs, many sparked by Thornton, and some emotional moments with each player sharing some personal stories.

For Chara, that story was about the decision he faced when he was an unrestricted free agent following his first four seasons with the New York Islanders and four more with the Ottawa Senators.

"I remember me and my wife, Tatiana, we were sitting on the bed, and we were just thinking, like, 'Where are we going? Where are we signing?'" Chara said. "And it's a huge unknown, because you get the phone call and there's a team who is interested. There's a deal. Two minutes later my agent says, 'There are another two teams with the same offer.' There's a city, but you have to decide in two minutes. You have to give them an answer back, and just like 180-200 seconds, you have to decide where you're going to go, because those teams, they don't have time for ... they may pursue somebody else."

Chara not only signed with Boston, he became Bruins captain and helped them win the Stanley Cup in 2011, and to the Stanley Cup Final in 2013 and 2019. He played 1,023 games for the Bruins, eighth in team history.

Some of the other highlights at the Fan Forum:

-- Decker, a gold-medal winner for the United States at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, telling the story of how she got the call from the Hall of Fame. She was actually cutting her grass on her riding mower in June when the phone started ringing and it was call from Toronto. At first, she thought it was a recruit from Shattuck-St. Mary's, where she's an associate coach.

"It was a normal day in Minnesota," Decker said. "I ignored it, but then a phone call comes through again. I think, 'I should probably answer this one,' and sure enough, it was Ron (Francis) and Lanny (McDonald) on the other line."

-- Keith, who played 16 of his 17 NHL seasons for the Chicago Blackhawks and is a three-time Stanley Cup champion (2010, '13, '15), had perhaps the most heartfelt moment when he recognized and thanked a group of Blackhawks fans seated in the first row who supported him his whole career. His funniest moment was when he talked about how he came to wear No. 2.

"I remember being sent down to Norfolk when I was 20 after my first training camp," Keith said. "I got into Norfolk, got into the room and saw No. 2 (jersey) sitting there, and I said, 'I guess I'm No. 2."

-- Botterill's story of her wearing No. 17 went back to a conversation she had with her dad when she was 15.

"I was talking about my dream of making the (Canadian) Olympic team, but I wasn't sure if it was possible and my dad told me, 'Why not? Why not you if someone else can be there?'" said Botterill, a four-time Olympian who won gold three times (2002, '06, '10). "When I made my first Olympic team I wore No. 7, but a couple of years afterwards I had a chance to change it, and I took 17 because my dad's birthday is the 17th."

-- Of all of Thornton's best moments, including recognizing his junior coach in the crowd, perhaps the best came when he followed up Keith's story of his struggles in the minors.

"Well, I was drafted first overall," joked Thornton, who was selected No. 1 by Boston in the 1997 NHL Draft. "My [rookie] year was a disaster. I didn't score my first goal until December (3rd), so brutal. I didn't know if I was going to go back to the [Ontario Hockey League], but they ended up keeping me up for the whole year.

"But I was second-guessing myself all year long. It was a year-long battle."

Thornton, like Chara, Keith, Decker and Botterill, overcame the early struggles and on Monday will officially become a Hockey Hall of Famer.