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Post by SeaBass on Jan 2, 2020 9:43:56 GMT -5
Please keep the content in this thread Marchy related.
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Post by offwego on Jan 7, 2020 10:20:17 GMT -5
Crickets.... that's a good thing....
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Post by kjc2 on Jan 7, 2020 22:26:08 GMT -5
I agree with the grade he was given in the post in Articles of Interest. A+ and our most important player.
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Post by orym on Jan 8, 2020 9:05:13 GMT -5
I agree with the grade he was given in the post in Articles of Interest. A+ and our most important player. What I love more than anything is that he has finally found "the line" and is staying on the right side of it. He crossed the line multiple times a year previously and ended up getting suspended and being a huge distraction. I think the message finally got through to him that he is a top line player and 100 point guy. We need him on the ice causing hell and scoring goals, not watching from the press box.
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Post by SeaBass on Jan 8, 2020 9:54:18 GMT -5
All these mothers sacrificed to help get their sons to where they are today. Some of them — ahem, Lynn Marchand — may have dealt with a little more than others.
“You sit there and say, ‘Oh, Bradley. What are you doing? Please don’t do that,’” she said with a laugh. “He’s always been a player to play with a bit of an edge because of his size, so it’s worked for him, but at other times, when he was younger, he didn’t know where the line was to stop crossing. When he crossed that line it was a little bit stressful, but he’s learned from those situations and he’s grown up a fair bit.”
Marchand has developed into an elite player in the NHL. His mother credits his heart, passion, desire and ability to have fun on the ice for his transformation.
“We’re really proud of how far he’s come and has really developed into a star player in the league,” she said. “We want him to strive for being his best and really contributing to the team and being a team player and not putting his team in a situation of disadvantage because he crossed that line. When he’s proud of how he’s playing, and he knows he’s making us proud it feels good for all of us.”
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Post by madmarx on Jan 17, 2020 9:43:33 GMT -5
Brad on Twitter
ATTENTION...hands have been lost or stolen, if found please return to TD Garden...thanks
Hall Gill
You should be happy you had them at all. Some people go through their whole life without them.
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Post by skemack on Jan 17, 2020 12:26:34 GMT -5
Brad Marchand on twitter is literally the only think I like about that deplorable app.
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Post by madmarx on Jan 18, 2020 12:59:10 GMT -5
Brad Marchand not too disappointed he's not going to NHL All-Star Game: "I'm battling a couple things too ... it's an honor and a privilege ... but that's not why you play hockey."
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Post by KSJ08 on Jan 18, 2020 13:45:17 GMT -5
Brad on Twitter ATTENTION...hands have been lost or stolen, if found please return to TD Garden...thanks Hall Gill You should be happy you had them at all. Some people go through their whole life without them. Really Hal?!?
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Post by offwego on Jan 19, 2020 9:48:03 GMT -5
Brad on Twitter ATTENTION...hands have been lost or stolen, if found please return to TD Garden...thanks Hall Gill You should be happy you had them at all. Some people go through their whole life without them. Really Hal?!? Gill speaking from experience...
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Post by KSJ08 on Jan 19, 2020 9:55:45 GMT -5
Gill speaking from experience... Really? If so totally understandable. But in Marshy defense he IS making light of his lack of scoring as of late & the HUGE Shoot out whiff.
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Post by offwego on Jan 19, 2020 10:02:17 GMT -5
Gill speaking from experience... Really? If so totally understandable. But in Marshy defense he IS making light of his lack of scoring as of late & the HUGE Shoot out whiff. I was confirming that Gill had no "hands" and to see Marchy make fun of himself says something to his maturity and knowing hes one of the most hated out there... although I love our little ball of hate
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Post by madmarx on Sept 10, 2020 6:34:57 GMT -5
Bruce Cassidy said he had Brad Marchand and his family over for dinner the summer after the licking incident to discuss why he should stop that stuff and change his legacy.
“He’s truly an elite player in the National Hockey League.”
Side note they had KFC and Brad didn’t lick his fingers.. 🤷♂️
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Post by kjc2 on Sept 10, 2020 8:24:51 GMT -5
Bruce Cassidy said he had Brad Marchand and his family over for dinner the summer after the licking incident to discuss why he should stop that stuff and change his legacy. “He’s truly an elite player in the National Hockey League.” Side note they had KFC and Brad didn’t lick his fingers.. 🤷♂️ Marchand definitely is a changed player on the ice and still great. Who doesn’t lick their fingers when eating any kind of chicken??
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Post by madmarx on Sept 10, 2020 10:58:07 GMT -5
Bruce Cassidy said he had Brad Marchand and his family over for dinner the summer after the licking incident to discuss why he should stop that stuff and change his legacy. “He’s truly an elite player in the National Hockey League.” Side note they had KFC and Brad didn’t lick his fingers.. 🤷♂️ Marchand definitely is a changed player on the ice and still great. Who doesn’t lick their fingers when eating any kind of chicken?? Fake news I made the last part up 😉
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Post by kjc2 on Sept 10, 2020 13:10:33 GMT -5
Marchand definitely is a changed player on the ice and still great. Who doesn’t lick their fingers when eating any kind of chicken?? Fake news I made the last part up 😉 I figured as much 🙂
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Post by SeaBass on Dec 2, 2020 9:37:11 GMT -5
You know about Brad Marchand’s licking. The suspensions. The chirps. Even if, in context, Marchand has mellowed with age.
Other stories, such as the eight that follow, are not as well known. In sum, they paint a layered and complicated picture of a fierce competitor, a funny guy, a flammable temperament and an evolving human being.
Fighting Torey Krug Jan. 6, 2015, was not a good day for the Bruins. They were coming off back-to-back losses to Ottawa and Carolina. Their 19-15-6 record put them in fifth place in the Atlantic Division, 12 points south of Tampa Bay, the top club. Charlie Jacobs, promoted to CEO that day, declared the team “a complete failure.”
Of course, two of their best players had to get in a fight that day.
Marchand and Torey Krug have a lot in common. By NHL standards, they are on the short side at 5-foot-9. Neither backs down from anyone. Both enjoy physicality. They like giving each other the business.
On this day, all of these factors collided.
The Bruins had a rare practice at TD Garden. Coach Claude Julien was running the team through a 3-on-3 down-low battle drill.
Tempers were already short because of the team’s skid. Bumping and jostling didn’t help. Matters escalated to where Marchand and Krug got their gloves-off hands on each other. Their teammates soon realized that pulling the plug before they started chucking would be best for all parties.
“It wasn’t much of a fight,” Krug, who left the Bruins in free agency for St. Louis this year, said recently. “It was more of a wrestling match. I think if guys didn’t step in, we probably would have started throwing. We probably would have. We’re both competitive guys, smaller guys who’ve had to fight for everything in our careers. Just the way we practice and our mentality as people and players. Obviously we’re best of friends now. So it doesn’t matter.”
During practice, teammates exchange slashes as regularly as insults. Fights, however, do not occur often, even with players as flammable as Marchand.
In retrospect, the stress of the situation may have been contagious. The year started poorly when general manager Peter Chiarelli traded Johnny Boychuk before the season to clear cap space. The Bruins’ $4.75 million cap overage penalty for 2014-15 limited their roster construction. Julien rode Tuukka Rask hard because of the unreliability of backup Niklas Svedberg.
As such, Jacobs put everybody on watch. It would cost Chiarelli his job at season’s end.
“For us to be a team that’s out of the playoffs is absolutely unacceptable,” Jacobs said on Jan. 6. “Everybody in the executive offices is fully aware of how I feel. They feel the same way, which brings us to this evaluation process. It’s fluid right now. I can’t say that any moment we have a final decision, other than to say it’s been an utter disappointment and a failure. A complete failure.”
The shock of the Krug-Marchand fight, coupled with Jacobs’ declaration, caused a short-term revival. The Bruins reeled off five straight wins, starting with a 3-2 decision over Pittsburgh the next day.
“I think it actually fired up the group a little bit,” Krug said. “We joke about it all the time. I think we went on a winning streak right after.”
‘Where’s Marshy?’ Marchand always likes to be the last player off the ice at the conclusion of warmups. This started in Providence. Well after his teammates retreated to the dressing room, Marchand chose to loiter.
One time, this caused a problem.
Sometime in the 2008-09 season, Marchand’s first as a pro, Springfield was hosting Providence. Springfield’s Rob Schremp also preferred to be the last man standing at the end of warmups.
Marchand and Schremp took their standoff to an extreme. When Rob Murray, Providence’s coach at the time, addressed his team before the game, an important player was missing.
“Between periods with 13 minutes left on the clock, I usually go in and talk to the guys,” Murray said. “I walk in the room, and I’m like, ‘Where’s Marshy?’ Everybody puts their head down. He’s still out on the ice.”
Murray stormed out of the room and down the runway to retrieve his rookie. Indeed, Marchand and Schremp were standing at the gates to their respective benches. Even Murray’s approach did not cause Marchand to waver.
“They won’t budge,” Murray said.
Jeff Truitt, Springfield’s coach at the time, discovered he had the same issue as Murray. Truitt rushed out of his room too. Truitt was not amused.
“He comes right out after Schremp,” Murray said. “He goes, ’Schremppy, get the fuck in here!’ I look at Marshy and say, ‘Marshy, you’re starting.’ ”
Twelve bad penalty minutes Bruce Cassidy cannot recall if the game took place in the 2008-09 season or 2009-10. But Cassidy, Providence’s assistant at the time, remembers the team lost in Manchester that night. Marchand was partly responsible.
“Marsh took a two and a 10,” Cassidy said, referring to a minor penalty and a 10-minute misconduct. “It was a bad time. I don’t know if we were ahead a goal or even. I can’t remember the exact circumstance. But we lost the game. And he was in the box.”
By then, Marchand had proven himself as a go-to AHL player. In such situations, top-line players are needed on the ice, not serving selfish penalty minutes. Murray, Providence’s head coach, subtly reinforced that message postgame.
“I don’t want to name names,” Murray told the team. “But we need to have a little better discipline.”
Murray then asked if his assistant had anything to add.
“Yeah, I will name names,” Cassidy said. “Brad, that was bullshit. You let your teammates down. Lack of discipline. Not the time to do it. You need to show your teammates that you’re going to be the best player on the ice tomorrow night. Nothing you can do about it now. It’s over with. But you need to learn from it.”
Marchand accepted the carving. The next game, Marchand was Providence’s top performer.
“I thought he responded well to a challenge,” Cassidy said. “His teammates were pissed at him. I just pointed it out. I wasn’t that upset. I’m used to seeing this out of young guys. You’re going to have to live with a little bit of that. But I do believe a message needed to be sent to him early on about that kind of behavior in his game. We had heard, and rightfully so, that a lot of this was following him from junior. We tried to nip it in the bud. He was good the next day.”
A good guy, actually
The plan was for Marchand to use red tape in warmups prior to a game last spring. It would be Marchand’s sign of support for an Indigenous youth player in Nova Scotia targeted with racial taunts during a game.
The pandemic scuttled that plan.
According to his friends, Marchand, a father of two, sparkles around children. When young guests visit the dressing room, one of Marchand’s go-to questions is what number they like best. He praises the wisdom of those who answer No. 63.
“Aside from all the on-ice antics — I could say the suspensions, the funny stories about him licking people in the face, things like that — I’ll always tell the stories of how he treated my family,” said Krug. “Not only myself, but my nephew, he’s my nephew’s favorite player. No matter what the schedule’s like, he always takes the time to say hello. He knows if my family’s coming to a game, he’s like, ‘Hey, is Carter coming? I’m going to look for him on the glass.’ He throws him a puck every time. Just the way he treats his own family. He’s an unbelievable dad. Just a great person. I know that oftentimes gets overlooked because of his antics on the ice. So those are the things I’m always going to remember.”
Outside of Boston, such anecdotes are considered to be beyond belief. Outsiders regularly inquire within the Black-and-Gold roster for confirmation. The Bruins are happy to provide it.
“If you see Finnish guys or whoever,” said Rask, “guys from other teams you interact with on whatever occasion, they’re like, ‘What’s up with Marchand?’ I’m like, ‘He’s actually a great guy.’ A lot of us, we just get judged by what we do on the ice. Off-ice demeanor and behavior kind of gets overlooked at times. That’s understandable. But it’s always funny to tell people that he’s actually a great guy. People have a hard time believing that.”
Jon Cooper used to belong to such company. In 2018, as a coach at the All-Star Game that year in Tampa, the Lightning boss expected Marchand to show up and be a jerk. Instead, Marchand, with stepson Sloane as company, charmed everybody during the weekend, including Cooper.
“It actually was disappointing,” Cooper said. “I was hoping he was going to be an idiot. I was hoping I wasn’t going to like him. But he was unreal. It’s amazing a guy who’s that kind, nice, outgoing and friendly is the same guy that jumps on the ice.”
The Tomahawk From early on, the 1988-born boys of Halifax, Nova Scotia, gained a reputation of being a bunch of roughnecks. Andrew Bodnarchuk, a no-nonsense defenseman, was no exception. The former Bruin blue liner had no issues being physical.
Bodnarchuk, however, wasn’t known for popping his cork like one of his teammates.
When the fast friends were 14 years old, Marchand and an opposing player got into it on the ice. Marchand, to his credit, skated away from the altercation. Later in the game, the opponent tugged at Marchand from behind. Fortunately, the player’s cage served as a much-needed barricade.
“Marshy did a full 180,” Bodnarchuk recalled. “Baseball swing right at the guy’s melon.”
The swing and the connection earned Marchand a three-game suspension. It also left Marchand with a temporary nickname: The Tomahawk.
Agitation pays off In 2009, Providence held a 3-2 series lead over Worcester in Round 2 of the AHL playoffs. In Game 6, a do-or-die tilt for Worcester, Riley Armstrong, the Sharks’ top goal scorer, was shown the door in the second period. Providence scored a 5-1 win and ended Worcester’s season.
If it was any solace, it was that Armstrong got his money’s worth on the 21-year-old punk who set him off: 5-minute spearing major, 5-minute boarding major, 10-minute game misconduct for spearing, 10-minute game misconduct for boarding.
“Marshy was pretty good at agitating guys he knew would do that,” Cassidy said. “I don’t think he’d agitate a guy was kind of laid-back. He’d pick the guys he thought he could get to.”
Armstrong, who had 101 penalty minutes to accompany his 25 goals that year, had broad-shouldered company. Frazer McLaren (110 PIMs) and Brad Staubitz (130), two of the AHL’s most dangerous sluggers, also played for Worcester.
“You have to have a certain level of confidence that you can defend yourself if need be if they decide to turn,” Cassidy said. “He knows just how much to go. And he uses his stick well to defend himself. He’ll get it up. But Marshy’s fought. Some people think he doesn’t fight. He’s fought. He’s not what you’d call a heavyweight by any means. But he’s backed it up at times.”
‘I knew I wasn’t stupid’
When he was 15 years old, Marchand, naturally, was driving his coach cuckoo during one game by taking reckless penalties. It got to the point where Rob O’Brien lost it.
“Coach O’Brien had had enough,” recalled Blake Gallagher, Marchand’s close friend and then-midget teammate. “He comes into the dressing room. Everybody’s sitting down. Marshy’s sitting beside me in his stall. Rob comes over and says, ‘Marshy, what the fuck is wrong with you? I don’t know if you’re stupid or if you’re a fucking pussy. So what is it?’ ”
Marchand, for once in his life, didn’t know what to say.
“So he gets in his face,” Gallagher said, “and says, ‘Answer me!’ ”
“I knew I wasn’t stupid,” Marchand recalled. “So…”
The rest is legend among Marchand’s inner circle.
“Just the fact that he was so hung up on not saying he was stupid,” Gallagher said, explaining why the encounter remains iconic nearly 20 years later. “It was like he completely ignored everything else that was asked. He just so badly didn’t want to say he was stupid, and he just shut off the other part. That’s what made it so funny. We were teenagers. Things have changed for sure. Coaches can’t get away with talking like that with teenagers. I still have a great relationship with that coach.”
Training to the limit Marchand played junior hockey. Gallagher went the NCAA route with Cornell. But the two friends regularly trained together in the offseason in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
One time, the two went through an all-out lactate threshold workout. Marchand might have pushed himself a bit too far. That became clear when a visitor to the facility came at the wrong time.
“Marshy’s walking around, trying to shake out his legs,” Gallagher said. “The owner of the gym came upstairs, showing it to this person. He says, ‘This is the part of the facility where a lot of pro hockey players are training.’ Marshy at the time is walking right in front of me. His legs completely gave out. This guy is walking into the gym for the first time, and here’s Marshy collapsing right in front of him. He had gone right down to the floor. That’s the way he pushes himself in a workout — to the brink for that kind of feeling.”
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Post by madmarx on Dec 2, 2020 13:56:29 GMT -5
Awesome article 👍
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Post by SeaBass on Mar 4, 2021 9:28:22 GMT -5
Bruce Cassidy grilled the filets. Brad Marchand ripped into the salad. Sloane, Marchand’s stepson, 8, brainstormed the brilliance of dipping the string beans into soy sauce. Shannon, 9, and Cole, 7, Cassidy’s daughter and son, adopted the maneuver. Sawyer, Marchand’s toddler daughter, entertained herself and her observers by pulling every piece of Tupperware out of the bottom drawer of the Cassidys’ kitchen island.
That day in June of 2018, the weather was nice enough at the Cassidys’ home north of Boston that the big kids had dinner outside. Cassidy, wife Julie, Marchand and wife Katrina settled in the kitchen. As they kept their eyes on Sawyer, the four grownups ate and discussed the matter at hand.
A month before, in the second round of the playoffs, the Bruins’ season ended in five games against Tampa Bay. In Game 4, Marchand wiped out Ryan Callahan with a low hit. It was a borderline move, and one that had become common for the Bruins left wing.
During a subsequent stoppage, the Lightning alternate captain approached Marchand and gave him a jab to express his displeasure. Marchand answered, but not with a punch or face wash or any other expected hockey response. Marchand bumped his visor against his opponent’s, extended his tongue and swiped it up Callahan’s face. He licked him.
“I’d go right in and take a shower,” then-NBC Sports analyst Jeremy Roenick said.
“It’s not good,” said fellow analyst Keith Jones.
“I would probably sucker-punch the guy,” said host Kathryn Tappen. “It’s unbelievable.”
“There’s no question about that too,” Roenick answered. “I don’t know what goes through his head right there. I’d rather have (Marchand) punch him in the face than lick him in the face. There’s no need for that. There’s no licking in hockey.”
“Yeah,” Jones said. “We’ll go with that.”
“I can’t even wrap my head around it,” Tappen said.
A month later, as Marchand sat in Julie Cassidy’s kitchen, she struggled to integrate her knowledge of Marchand with what others were saying and writing about him. Cassidy knew Marchand as a respectful and caring family man during their exchanges at TD Garden. Now, Cassidy was hearing him described as “a rat.”
“I didn’t even know this other side,” Cassidy says. “It was such a shame because I only know this kind, loving person that is responsible. I was disappointed to even know that all this other stuff existed.”
As he sat down to dinner that evening with the Cassidys, Marchand’s reputation was in ribbons. But they all talked. They all listened.
The deepest matter was Marchand’s legacy. By then, he was a Stanley Cup champion, a two-time All-Star and a first-line fixture. Bruce and Julie Cassidy worried that all of his accomplishments would be dismissed because of his behavior.
“You’ve earned some rope to not have to do those things,” Bruce Cassidy told Marchand. “If it’s something you need, we’ll talk about it. If not, let’s get rid of it.”
On March 17, 2011, the NHL’s Department of Player Safety extracted $6,330.64 from Marchand’s wallet for elbowing R.J. Umberger. It was his first fine. It would not be his last.
Marchand has ceded $879,522.46 in forfeited salary and fines for on-ice infractions. He has been suspended six times for 19 games.
Opinions on Marchand’s infractions have never been muted. After Marchand went low on Sami Salo in 2012, a move that led to a five-game suspension, then-Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault predicted a painful fate for the left wing.
“Some day, somebody’s going to say, ‘Enough is enough,’ and they’re going to hurt the kid, because he plays to hurt players,” Vigneault said. “In my mind, if the league doesn’t take care of it, somebody else will.”
The process would be the same each time. Marchand would apologize. Then he would get into trouble again.
Marchand believed borderline play was stitched into who he was. As a 14-year-old, he took a home-run swing at an opponent’s head. A year later, following a string of stupid penalties, Marchand’s coach demanded to know whether he was stupid or … something else.
To this day, the 2006 third-rounder believes Marco Sturm’s knee injury was the primary reason he made the Bruins roster in 2010-11. In the years that followed, regardless of how much he improved, Marchand never lost the sensation of fighting for his job on every shift.
“Early on, I never really thought about how people were going to view me as a player once I retire,” Marchand says. “It never really bothered me because I was just trying to live another year in the NHL, just get a little bit better and try to stay. I’m not trying to think, ‘Well, in 15 years, how are people going to view me?’ Because I need to get to another year. Then another year.”
Marchand’s style led to individual production and team results. In 2015-16, Marchand led the team with a career-high 37 goals. On Sept. 26, 2016, he signed an eight-year, $49 million extension. Three days later, riding shotgun with Patrice Bergeron and Sidney Crosby, Marchand scored the winning goal for Team Canada in the World Cup of Hockey title game.
“If you play a certain way, do certain things and have success, you’re like, ‘Well, I can’t change because then I won’t have that same success,’ whatever it may be,” says Bruins president Cam Neely. “Athletes in particular are somewhat superstitious. You can say, ‘I’ve still got to do the same stuff. That’s what’s making me successful.’ But certain things like that, for example, isn’t going to make you a better hockey player.”
“That,” in Neely’s words, was the lick.
Ironically, Marchand was neither penalized nor disciplined for dragging his tongue under Callahan’s nose. Condemnation came in other forms.
“I don’t know what the difference is between that and spitting in somebody’s face,” Callahan said after the game. “If I’m not mistaken, spitting is a game misconduct, if not a gross. I don’t know what the difference is there, if it’s not worse. It’s unfortunate that he goes to that low to do that.”
The following day, Colin Campbell, NHL senior vice president of hockey operations, spoke with Marchand and general manager Don Sweeney. This was Marchand’s second offense — he had appeared to lick Toronto’s Leo Komarov earlier that same season — and Campbell made it clear the behavior was unacceptable. If Marchand pulled something like that again, discipline would be swift.
Internally, the message was similar. Marchand had embarrassed himself and the Bruins.
“I think that was the first time anybody ever saw that happen,” Neely recalls with a laugh. “So it was more shocking that it would take place in a sporting event, especially hockey.”
In the weeks following the lick and the Bruins’ playoff exit, Julie Cassidy went back and forth with Katrina Marchand about getting together. The two are good friends. Their children play together regularly. They wanted to see each other one last time before the Marchands departed for vacation in Italy. At the last minute, they settled on a date.
Neither of the Cassidys recalls how one thing led to another. But somehow, they thought about expanding the visit to include the men.
At first, Bruce Cassidy wasn’t sure. The season was over. Marchand didn’t owe Cassidy anything.
“The toughest part is reaching out to the other party to see where they’re at,” Cassidy says. “He might tell you to go screw: ‘No interest, Coach. Sorry.’ Then you find a solution to the problem in a different way. But I’ve always felt, in a lot of walks of life, that when you get two people who work together out of the work environment and into a casual environment, you can get further.”
Cassidy called Marchand and extended the invitation. Marchand agreed.
By Marchand’s recollection, he had never gone to dinner at any of his previous coaches’ houses. This time, though, Marchand didn’t see it that way.
“I didn’t really feel that way about going to Butchy’s,” Marchand says. “We have a really good relationship. We always did, even in the minors. Our kids are the same age. They get along really well. Our wives get along really well. I wasn’t looking at it as a player-coach kind of thing. More as friends.”
That was the key.
A coach does not usually pull a player into his office to praise him. It is regularly the place of last resort, after bench talks or directives in the dressing room or critiques during video sessions fall short of making their points.
“Because at that desk, in there, that’s a position of authority for the other person,” Bruce Cassidy says. “I’ve been on the other side meeting coaches. When you have a cup of coffee on a park bench, it’s easier to discuss things. I’ve been in that chair a few times. Just the mindset changes when you walk to the coach’s office door. You’re a little defensive. You’re preparing your answers. You know it’s going to be something you might not want to hear.”
Cassidy didn’t want to lecture Marchand. Cassidy believed a more casual setting — in everyday wardrobe, not the suits and uniforms of the workplace — would promote a deeper and richer discussion. As they usually do, children helped relax the atmosphere.
By then, Sloane, Shannon and Cole were fast friends. After day games at TD Garden, the three were usually among the first wave of kids to dash into the dressing room. More often than not, they ran right for the buckets of gum before greeting their dads.
It was no different at the Cassidy residence. That day, the kids played hockey in the back yard. They progressed to video games in the basement. Sawyer played with Shannon’s gymnastics cushions.
As night came, the grownups’ conversation progressed toward the lick. By Julie Cassidy’s recollection, the transition happened naturally.
“It wasn’t difficult to get to,” Cassidy says. “It wasn’t like, ‘This is the elephant in the room, let’s get to this conversation because this is what we want to have.’ It just happened.”
Bruce Cassidy addressed Marchand’s legacy. The left wing had turned 30 the month before. It was time, Cassidy said, that Marchand thought about how he wanted to be remembered, even if the end wasn’t close.
Julie Cassidy says she didn’t know her guest as Marshy, Little Ball of Hate, a rat or a licker. He was Brad: a good husband, father, son, grandson and brother.
“It’s disappointing,” she told Marchand of the lick’s aftermath, “because this is not who you are.”
Marchand acknowledged his mistake.
“This is what I did wrong. Hard stop,” Julie Cassidy recalls Marchand saying. “This is how I want to move forward.”
The evening concluded. The families said their goodbyes. As Marchand drove home, he reflected on how the Cassidys — his friends, not his coach and his coach’s wife — helped sharpen the realization that he was at a crossroads.
“You’ve got to put your pride aside a little bit and think long-term,” Marchand said. “That’s what I started to do — look a little further down the road, look at the guys around me that have had success and all kinds of good praise and try to follow their footsteps. It just opened my eyes a little bit and allowed me to try to make good decisions in my actions and my mindset.”
Marchand has played 207 games without an incident: no fines, no suspensions, nothing since that dinner at the Cassidys.
“You need to train your body to do certain things and react in certain ways,” Marchand says. “It takes time to do that. I’m calmer now. I don’t get as worked up. Things that used to bother me don’t necessarily bother me. I’m not as concerned about doing certain things or getting in certain guys’ heads.”
Nearly three years without flareups has shown Marchand can excel without acting foolishly. He is a fixture on the best three-zone line in the league. He does not have many competitors for the title of the top all-around left wing in the game. He is a self-made superstar.
“When he first broke in, you could see, ‘OK, he skates well. He competes hard. He’s got good hockey sense.’ That was even before he came to this team,” Neely says. “You knew it in the past. But to get to the level where he’s at now, I don’t know if anybody could honestly say, ‘Oh, he’s going to be a top-line left wing.’ But I give him all the credit in the world to put the time in to make himself just that.”
Nobody knows this better than his teammates. Their post-practice bruises tell the story of how fiercely Marchand fights for every puck.
“In college, watching them win the Cup, I thought he was a rat,” says Bruin Chris Wagner, a Colgate freshman in 2010-11. “He was really good in the Cup run, obviously. But I think he kind of settled down in that middle stage. He still did some things he got punished for. Now he’s really cleaned up his game and become one of the best players in the league. Once you watch him every day in practice, the stuff he tries, how hard he competes, I think that’s the most important thing with him. He competes every shift. He tries to win every single battle.”
Opinions vary. Callahan declined an interview request. Vigneault, perhaps begrudgingly, tipped his cap.
“I don’t usually comment on players from other teams. I focus on my players and my team,” Vigneault says. “But what I can say about Brad is that in my mind — I’ve been in the league since he’s been in the league — he’s a competitive young man. He comes to play. He plays with an edge. He walks that fine line. But he plays with bite. He plays with an edge for Boston. There’s no doubt that it’s not a bad thing to have.”
Blake Gallagher, a lifelong friend from Nova Scotia, commends Marchand for steering clear of the “childish stuff.” At least since the licking incident. “He now recognizes he’s so valuable to the team,” Gallagher says. “He’s no good in the box. He plays in every possible situation. He also knows to be engaged and at his best, right on that edge. He’s found a way to walk that line. Look at his stats. He gets better every year.”
Friends like Gallagher have always known Marchand to have a big heart. Marchand’s hot head, however, obscured his accomplishments on or off the ice.
It’s different now. When the in-game temperature rises, Marchand does his best to hold his tongue, skate away, ignore the situation. All of this has required training.
“It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a long time,” Marchand says. “I’m not going to sit here and say I might not do something stupid again. Because it’s very possible. But we’re here.”
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Post by RascalHoudi on Mar 4, 2021 12:27:48 GMT -5
^great article. That certainly was a crossroad he was at, and the discipline he has learned to show has gone a long way in evevating his play.
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Post by SeaBass on Jun 30, 2021 6:08:35 GMT -5
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Post by SeaBass on Sept 15, 2022 12:39:50 GMT -5
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Post by SeaBass on Sept 15, 2022 12:41:44 GMT -5
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Post by SeaBass on Sept 16, 2022 7:58:04 GMT -5
PLYMOUTH — No longer hobbled by double hip surgery and eyeing a late-November return to action, Brad Marchand plans to hit the ice Friday for the first time in four months.
“It’s pretty much like learning how to skate again,” said Marchand, speaking to a small group of reporters Thursday at the annual Bruins Foundation golf tournament at Pinehills Golf Club. The No. 1 left wing will go “very light for this first little while and then hopefully progress each week.
“I’ve never not skated for four months . . . it’s going to take a little bit to get back.”
Marchand, who did not golf, said he was on crutches for two to three weeks and started light rehab exercises after about six weeks. He was able to begin “lightly training” his upper body two months ago and began ramping up last month.
This is the 34-year-old’s second offseason lower-body surgery in two years. He had a sports hernia surgery in September 2020. That ailment, he said, masked issues with his hip.
“Once I got that [sports hernia surgery] done, I had issues all over the place — the hip issue, they realized there was a little more to it,” said Marchand, who has missed six games because of injury in the last three years. “Then it was more just about figuring out when we were going to do it. What it came down to was trying to get as many years out of my body as I could and to do that, I had to do it sooner than later.”
He didn’t plan on having the surgery this summer, but a first-round exit against Carolina changed his mind.
Speaking of decisions, Marchand’s quite happy his best pal, Patrice Bergeron, is back. Bergeron gave him a heads-up before announcing his return.
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Post by kjc2 on Sept 16, 2022 9:59:55 GMT -5
Damn, I was hoping he meant Canadian Thanksgiving 😞
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Post by SeaBass on Sept 20, 2022 10:06:40 GMT -5
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Post by SeaBass on Sept 20, 2022 10:11:38 GMT -5
Funny stuff.
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Post by SeaBass on Nov 1, 2022 6:45:54 GMT -5
There's a famous story about Brad Marchand's exit meetings in Boston after his rookie season.
Throughout Marchand's draft process and early in his pro hockey career, he was often reminded of what he couldn't achieve. NHL teams believed he was too small (a 5-foot-9 forward was especially undersized as he was breaking in). Scouts said Marchand's skating wasn't good enough. NHL evaluators believed discipline was an issue. He was told his skill set probably didn't have a high ceiling.
Marchand, a third-round pick in 2006, got called up to the NHL for a 20-game stint in 2010. "After the year I met with Peter Chiarelli, then the GM, and he said, 'Look, you got a taste of it, you got to play some games, be around the playoffs, see what the NHL is like,'" Marchand recalls. "He said, 'Next year, if you can come in and be a good energy player, play on the fourth line, maybe get 10 goals, I think that would be a great year for you.'"
Marchand, who was 21 at the time, didn't like that outlook. The winger's response: "I think I could get 20 goals in this league."
"[Chiarelli] kind of looked at me and laughed," Marchand said. "I hadn't scored a goal in the league at that point. I had one assist in 20 games. I hadn't done much. I think it took him by surprise."
There's one thing you should know about Brad Marchand: Set limitations, and it fuels him with determination. He's often bucking other people's expectations for him.
Just look at the latest example: He defied doctors and returned more than a month ahead of schedule following double hip surgery, scoring two goals and adding an assist in his first game back this past Thursday.
MARCHAND SCORED 21 GOALS during his sophomore season -- and his career has since taken off to heights that perhaps only he imagined. At 34, he is one of the league's premiere superstars. He's still pesky -- few hound pucks like Marchand does, and he still lives up to his nickname as the "Little Ball of Hate" -- but no player in the NHL plays with that edge and consistently puts up his production.
Since that 2010 exit meeting, only Alex Ovechkin, Steven Stamkos, John Tavares and Patrick Kane have scored more goals than Marchand's 353.
This past offseason, Marchand hit a crossroads. The Bruins were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the Carolina Hurricanes in seven games. Fans wondered if Boston's core was aging out and another Stanley Cup window had closed.
Marchand battled lower body injuries the past several seasons. Despite a groin procedure, and a sports hernia surgery, issues kept flaring up.
Marchand was presented a choice by the Bruins' medical team: He could get hip surgery, or continue trying to play through it, and try to strengthen his body that way.
"They said, 'We think you should do the surgery, but it's up to the player,'" Marchand said. "I didn't want to miss time. We finished earlier than we had planned to, so that bought me a few more weeks."
His goal was to play as long as possible, so he decided getting the surgery was a good idea.
Then another decision: Surgery on one hip or both hips? Marchand asked his doctor if they only did one hip, could they guarantee he wouldn't have to get the other hip done in a few years?
Marchand didn't want to have to go through this process again at age 36 or 37.
Once the doctor said no, Marchand decided a double hip arthroscopy and labral repair was his best option.
"One of the first things the doctor told me after [surgery] was, 'You're lucky you did both, because you would've been done in a year or two," Marchand said. "Because at that point I would've needed a whole hip replacement and my career would've been over."
Then the doctor told Marchand something he didn't want to hear: The recovery timeline was six months. He would be sidelined until American Thanksgiving.
Marchand didn't like that outlook. So he found a way to change it.
"Personally, I feel like if you're told something, it's just a limitation that you're setting for yourself -- or in this case for my recovery," Marchand said. "Six months, that's a long time. And especially when I heard the breakdown for why I needed it. Unfortunately it was because I needed extra time to get back in shape. My instant thought was 'All right, how can we get this done sooner?'"
MARCHAND LEVELED WITH his medical team. "I said, 'We can do this one of two ways,'" he recalled. "You can help me where I'm doing it, and we make sure I don't get hurt. Or I'm just going to do it behind your back, because I'm going to do what I feel I need to do to get back early, and I'll probably injure myself because I don't know what I should be doing, and I'm going to do it anyway."
Marchand said he wanted to play opening night. The medical team countered with a more realistic compromise.
Everyone agreed to circle the last week of October on the calendar, roughly five weeks ahead of schedule.
The first part of the rehab process involved rest.
"We had a newborn at home, and I felt worse for my wife than myself," Marchand said. "I was fine, all I had to do was lay on my couch."
Then, Marchand returned home to Halifax. He hadn't been able to spend time at home over the past two summers amid the COVID-19 pandemic and wanted the chance to see family.
Marchand's trainer in Halifax (Matt MacIntyre) and Boston (Scott Waugh) stayed in constant communication. "Everyone was on the same page," he said. "Which was important."
Marchand flew back to Boston every 7-10 days to get checked out.
He wasn't cleared to skate until October, which was the hardest part. For most of the summer, he also couldn't lift anything heavier than 20 pounds, so rehab included a lot of stretching and body weight exercises.
"I have a lot of anxiety every summer about my routine, when I'm skating," Marchand said. "It was very tough to put that aside and accept the fact I can't do it."
But he focused on what he could do. To keep his conditioning up, that meant biking.
"I needed to hammer bike rides, so I said give me bike rides where I'm not going to injure myself," Marchand said. "I started doing two bike rides a day, one at morning one at night, about a month before I was supposed to."
Marchand agreed with the medical team: If he was feeling sore, he'd take days off. But that happened only a few times.
And by the time he returned to Boston ahead of the season, he was right on track with that late October return.
For Marchand, it all stems back to his philosophy as a player.
"If you're not setting goals, and you're not putting things out there that you want to attain, then you're just being stagnant and there are people around you that will surpass you and work to be better than you," he said.
Often Marchand's career has been framed around proving people wrong. He sees it differently: He's constantly proving himself right.
At 34, he credits his success to his work on the "mental side of the game" -- something he devotes more time to as the years go on.
"I don't think people realize how big that is -- how you can change your game and your confidence and perspective of who you are as a player and where you can end up," he said. "The more work I put into that, the more I realized what I could accomplish in the league."
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Post by madmarx on Nov 1, 2022 8:11:53 GMT -5
I can’t remember a Player who started as a fourth line scrub to a top ten Player in the league. All he does is prove People wrong 👊
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Post by orym on Nov 1, 2022 10:53:00 GMT -5
I can’t remember a Player who started as a fourth line scrub to a top ten Player in the league. All he does is prove People wrong 👊 I can recall wanting him run out of town over the discipline issues in that first season. Glad I'm not the GM!
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