Tom Brady’s return to Gillette Stadium with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this fall could be the “biggest regular-season ticket in history for any sporting event.”
There are few comparisons of an all-time great athlete returning to his old home to face a team he spent 20 years with.
While not an identical situation, one person who has at least some idea what this could be like for Brady is Ray Bourque.
After 21 seasons with the Bruins during which he established himself as the greatest defenseman of his generation and one of the greatest ever, Bourque was traded to the Colorado Avalanche during the 1999-2000 season.
He returned to Boston for an Avs-Bruins game at the Garden in March of the following season (a game in which he played an absurd 31:46 at age 40), and then returned again for a rally in his honor after Colorado won the Stanley Cup that spring.
While it seems obvious that Bourque would have gotten the overwhelming love from Boston fans that he did even after leaving, he told The Greg Hill Show Wednesday morning that there was a time after the trade when he wasn’t really sure if Boston fans would still feel the same way about him.
“Initially when I left, I wasn’t sure,” Bourque said. “When I came back after my first stint in Colorado, that whole summer, every single person I would run into told me that they kind of followed me out there. … I couldn’t believe all the people I was running into who were so happy in terms of me having another opportunity to get a good run, a deep run in the playoffs. That first year, we went to the semifinals and lost to Dallas in seven games.
“Then I was going back the next year, and that’s the year that I came back to Boston and we played against the Bruins, an afternoon game in the Garden. The ovation was incredible. They welcomed me back with open arms. And then after winning the Cup, I came back here and the mayor wanted to have a day for me. Ten thousand people ended up showing up. I couldn’t believe it. I think it’s just a mutual respect we had for each other."
Bourque said he expects that Brady will receive the same kind of ovation from Patriots fans when he takes the field at Gillette on Oct. 3.
“I know that when Tom comes back, he’s going to be welcomed with open arms with everything that he’s accomplished here, winning six Super Bowls and the way he did it,” Bourque said. “And I think people understand why he left, and I think that was the situation with me as well.”
There’s obviously a little bit of a difference. The Bruins were never able to win the Stanley Cup while Bourque was here, and they were nowhere close to contending when they traded him in 2000, giving him a chance to pursue and eventually win that elusive Cup with Colorado.
Brady, meanwhile, won six Super Bowls with the Patriots, including one in his second-to-last season here. They still went 12-4 and made the playoffs in his final season as a Patriot, but Brady decided to move on and sign with the Bucs, whom he led to a Super Bowl in his first season in Tampa.