As your number is going up, what’s going through your mind? How are you feeling?
That was the question to start Zdeno Chara’s press conference after having his No. 33 raised to the TD Garden rafters Thursday, never to be worn by a Boston Bruin again.
Chara paused. The words still didn’t come to him.
“I’m speechless,” he said. “Literally, I am speechless.”
Then he continued.
“It's one of those things that no matter how many times you picture it or imagine it, when it's actually happening, it's so much better and so much nicer,” Chara said. “Yeah, 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 to get there.”
Chara made sure he thanked as many of those people as he could before his number was raised to the rafters, when he actually could find the words for a speech while standing at center ice, addressing a sold-out TD Garden.
He thanked his family, of course. And he gave the actual honor of raising the banner to his three kids, letting them pull the ropes rather than himself.
“I think that's the highest award for me, to see my children, my family do it instead of me,” Chara said. “I think I get better joy watching them.”
He thanked the Bruins organization. He thanked all his former coaches and teammates, including mentioning every member of the 2011 Stanley Cup team by name. He thanked the other 12 Bruins who have had their numbers retired, including the seven who were able to join him at center ice for Thursday’s ceremony – Bobby Orr, Cam Neely, Johnny Bucyk, Rick Middleton, Willie O’Ree, Terry O’Reilly and Ray Bourque.
He thanked the doctors, trainers, equipment managers and various other team personnel who helped him throughout his career. He thanked Boston fans. Before his press conference started, he even thanked the media for their coverage of his career.
The fans thanked him right back, loudly chanting “Thank you, Chara!” after his speech. That almost brought Chara, one of the toughest players of his era, to tears.
“I was very close to getting very emotional, especially when the fans started to chant, ‘Thank you, Chara.’ I almost cracked,” he said.
Both sides had plenty of reason to thank each other. Back in July 2006, Boston was the place that gave a then-29-year-old Chara what he was looking for in free agency after the Ottawa Senators couldn’t find a way to extend him. It became his home. He spent the next 14 seasons captaining the Bruins. After brief detours to the Capitals and Islanders to finish his playing career, he returned to Boston, and rejoined the Bruins organization last year as a hockey operations advisor and mentor.
For fans, Chara’s arrival marked the start of the team’s climb back to the top after a mid-2000s downturn. It marked a culture shift that gave them a team they could root for, one that eventually captured the franchise’s first Stanley Cup in 39 years.
Ray Bourque may have summed it up best earlier Thursday evening.
“I think they became the Bruins again. I think we could be proud of that group and how they played,” Bourque said of the Chara-led B’s.
Chara’s accomplishments during his 24-year NHL career, including playing more games than any other defenseman in league history, landed him in the Hockey Hall of Fame this past November.
But his best years came in Boston. The Stanley Cup in 2011, and two other trips to the Cup Final in 2013 and 2019. A Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman in 2009, and five other top-five finishes in voting. Eighth in franchise history in games played (1,023). Tenth in plus/minus (+240). The second-longest captainship, behind only Bourque.
And it's those accomplishments, and the impact on the organization and the city that goes beyond the numbers, that landed No. 33 in the TD Garden rafters, where it will now hang forever.