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1924-1937
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Team Founded
Charles Francis Adams founded the Boston Bruins in 1924. Adams was a wealthy wholesale grocery who decided to put together a National League Hockey team. On November 1, 1924 Charles was approved by the league to start a franchise in Boston at a cost of $15,000. Once he received approval, former hockey player Art Ross was hired to help Adams run the newly founded franchise. Ross became the first coach of the Boston Bruins from 1924-1928. -
Charles Francis Adams Buys The Western Canada Hockey League
At the end of the 1926 National Hockey League season Boston Bruins owner Charles Francis Adams bought the entire Western Canada Hockey League. Adams purchased the league for $300,000 from the Patrick brothers. This was an incredible amount of money for the time period. The goal of this purchase was to increase the amount of quality players the Bruins could put on the ice. During the team’s first two seasons they did not play well, however, they slowly improved. Adams wanted to expedite this wait -
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1938-1953
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Won The Stanley Cup In The 1938-1939 Season
The teams were led by Eddie Shore, Milt Schmidt and goalie Frank Brimsek -
1940-1941 Season
With the NHL fairly new in the late 1930’s, the Boston Bruins along with every other team try to make a name for themselves across America. The Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup twice in the time period of 1938-1953. By winning these two much needed Stanley Cups between 1939 and 1941, the Boston Bruins were making themselves a household name. -
World War II
As the Bruins were dominating the NHL winning two Stanley Cups between 1939 and 1941, things were looking very bright for the franchise. That is until World War II started in 1941. Players from all over the league were going off to fight in the war. This made many teams worse as some of the players that left were their best. -
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1954-1969
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Willie O' Ree Becomes The First African American NHL Player
In 1958, for the first time in NHL history, a young black kid named Willie O?Ree came into the NHL as a Boston Bruin. He only played for 2 games that season but after a couple years in the minors came back in 1961 and played another 41 games. He scored 4 goals, tallied 10 assists for 14 total points in his NHL career. -
Bobby Orr Makes His NHL Debut
Robert Gordon Orr became a professional hockey player on October 19, 1966 when he played his first career game with the Bruins. His contract made him the highest paid NHL player in history as a rookie. Orr was born on March 20, 1948 in Canada and is widely known to be one of the greatest hockey players of all time. Orr played in the NHL for a total of 12 seasons and registered 1007 points (296 goals, and 711 assists) in 731 games. -
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1970-1985
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Stanley Cup Champions
The 1969-1970 Boston Bruins season was one of the most memorable seasons in the history of the Boston Bruins. In the previous season, the Bruins had a breakout year. The team had their first ever 100 point season in which the finished in second place. Unfortunately, they did not go far in the playoffs. So, they needed to redeem themselves. They came back firing at all cylinders. In their first seven games, the B’s went unbeaten at 6-0-1. -
Phil Esposito Traded
In the 1975-76 season, the Boston Bruins lost one of their best players of all time. Bobby Orr underwent two knee surgeries and only played 10 games for the Bruins that year (sportsencyclopedia.com, 2009). That was also the last time Orr would strap on the pads in a Bruins uniform. As a result of this injury, the Bruins were forced to make some moves that they desperately did not want to make. This includes trading Phil Esposito to the New York Rangers for Brad Park and Jean Ratelle. -
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1986-2001
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Ray Bourque Wins The Norris Trophy
Ray Bourque won the Norris trophy after the 1986-1987 season. The Norris trophy is given to the NHL’s best defenseman. This would be the first out of five times that Ray Bourque would be deemed the NHL’s best defenseman. Also, Ray Bourque scored his 600th career point during the 86-87 season. This after being in the league for only seven seasons is a tremendous accomplishment, especially for a defenseman. -
Bruins Without Cam Neely
Cam Neely Boston Bruin’s star forward returned after his playoff injury which many considered to be a cheap shot. In the 1991 Conference finals, Neely was checked by Ulf Samuelsson, and then in the sixth game hit in the same knee. Neely was later diagnosed with Myositis Ossificans. Neely played in only nine of eighty games in the 91-92 season. Unfortunately, without their star forward, the Bruins were forced to look for more offense through trades. -
Losing Season Leads To Borque Trade
This season was clearly the end of an era for the Boston Bruins. From early on, the Bruins were out of playoff contention. They would end the season with a 24-39-19-6 record missing the playoffs by a longshot. The real story of the season was the display of class by the Bruins franchise. -
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2002-2011
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2007-2008 Season Summary
In the 2007-08 season the Bruins were not expected to do much. The previous 2 seasons they finished in last place in the Northeast division out of the 5 teams. The Bruins fans were just hoping for consistently better effort being pretty sure the Bruins would not win the Stanley Cup. The Bruins organization changed head coaches prior to the 2007 season by firing Dave Lewis and hiring Claude Julien. -
2008-2009 Season Summary
The Bruins began the 2008/09 season looking to build on shocking the hockey world by taking the Montreal Canadiens to a 7th game in the playoffs in year the B’s weren’t expected to do much. The Bruins were going to be about defense under 2nd year head coach Claude Julien. Claude was in the running to be head coach of the year the previous year after what he did with team that was not suppose to do much and Claude has had prior success in the National Hockey League.
