Ray Bourque

• Born: December 28, 1960
• Birthplace: Saint-Laurent (now part of Montreal), Quebec, Canada

Sport: Ice hockey

Early Life

Raymond Jean Bourque was born the fourth of five children of a maintenance man and grew up in a working-class part of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. His father, Raymond, Sr., put a hockey net against a basement wall nearly as soon as his sons could skate.

By the age of fourteen, Bourque was playing in the Quebec junior leagues, for Three Rivers, then Sorel, followed by Verdun. In his final year in the juniors, the young defenseman scored 22 goals and 93 points. Boston Bruins general manager Harry Sinden, whose team had missed making the 1979 Stanley Cup Finals by one game, made Bourque his first pick—eighth overall—in that year’s entry draft. The great Boston defenseman Bobby Orr had retired the previous November, and Sinden hoped that Bourque could fill Orr’s shoes.

The Road to Excellence

Bourque went straight into the National Hockey League (NHL) without the usual time in the minor leagues and became a star almost immediately. He set up a goal in his first shift of his first game and finished the night with a second assist and a goal. By the end of that season, he became the first nongoalie both to be a first-team all-star and to win the Calder Trophy, as the NHL’s best rookie, in the same season. By the end of his career, he had appeared in seventeen NHL all-star games.

The Emerging Champion

Bourque, like Wayne Gretzky, wore a number on his sweater that was a doubled version of an earlier NHL star’s number. Whereas Gretzky chose to wear 99 in honor of Gordie Howe’s number 9, Bourque had been assigned the number 7, which had been worn previously by Phil Esposito. In 1987, he gladly relinquished it when the Bruins had a ceremony to retire Esposito’s number. “It’s all yours,” Bourque told him. For the rest of his career, he wore number 77.

Bourque and the Bruins had a chance at the Stanley Cup title in 1988, when they beat the perennial powerhouse Montreal Canadiens and then bested the New Jersey Devils, but they were swept in the finals by the Edmonton Oilers. The Boston Garden lights went out during game four, forcing the match to be suspended as a tie game.

A painful hip bruise caused Bourque to miss four games of the opening series of the 1990 playoffs. The Bruins tied the Hartford Whalers at 3–3, forcing a game seven. At noon, Bourque still could not skate. That evening, though, he led his club onto the Boston ice and played the entire game. In the opening game of the finals against the Oilers, he brought back his team with 2 third-period goals and sustained his play through 3 overtimes and 115 minutes—he played nearly 59 of them—before the team lost. The Bruins did win game three but lost the series 4–1. “We felt this was the year,” Bourque said after game five. “Another chance? I hope so.” He never again came that close to the title with the Bruins.

Continuing the Story

In 1997, the Bruins missed the playoffs for the first time in thirty years. Three years later, after playing in more than fifteen hundred games over twenty-one years with the same team, Bourque was thirty-nine years old and nearing the end of his career; he had never won a Stanley Cup. The 1999–2000 Boston Bruins missed the playoffs again. Bourque pondered retirement; on February 28, he asked Sinden to trade him to a better team. He wanted to go to the Detroit Red Wings or Philadelphia Flyers, teams he viewed as serious Cup contenders, and cities close enough that he could be with his family.

Sinden found a better deal with the Colorado Avalanche, however, and Bourque agreed to be traded. He and veteran forward Dave Andreychuk were exchanged for center Brian Rolston, two young prospects, and a first-round draft pick. In an emotional news conference the next morning, he bid a tearful farewell to Boston. “For ten years, I haven’t been close to competing for a Cup,” said Bourque. “I think I need to challenge myself at this point in time to really find out what I’ve got left as a hockey player.”

In Denver during the 1999–2000 season, he found that he was not past his prime. In fourteen end-of-season games with the Avalanche, he scored 8 goals and assisted on 6 others. More than that, however, his veteran leadership gave the Avalanche the drive it needed to beat out Edmonton for the division title. In the first seven games of the playoffs, Bourque earned another 5 assists. Once again, however, he failed to see his name engraved on the Stanley Cup.

Bourque spent his final—and most satisfying—season with the Avalanche. In eighty games, he scored only 7 goals, but he also collected 52 assists. More importantly, he helped lead the team to a dramatic win over the New Jersey Devils in the 2001 championship round and finally won his first Stanley Cup. Furthermore, he had set a record: he had played more years before winning his first Cup than anyone else in the 108-year history of Stanley Cup play. Team captain Joe Sakic then broke tradition by letting him be the first to carry the Stanley Cup around the ice.

Two weeks later, Bourque announced his retirement. The Boston Bruins retired his jersey number at the beginning of the next season. Although he had spent less than two seasons with the Avalanche, the team also retired his 77, making it the first hockey number to be retired in Denver. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2004, his first year of eligibility.

With his playing days over, Bourque became co-owner of the Tresca restaurant in Boston’s North End and a consultant for the Bruins. His son, Chris Bourque, signed with the Washington Capitals in 2005 and played his first NHL games in 2007–8.

In the summer of 2016, Bourque attracted media attention once more but for a reason other than his hockey career. After hitting another car in Massachusetts, he was arrested and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol in June 2016. Released on bail, he appeared in court the following month, where he was sentenced to one year of probation and a temporary suspension of his license. He released a statement asking for privacy regarding the issue as well as an apology to his fans and family.

Summary

By 1990–1, his twelfth season, Ray Bourque had scored more points than any other Bruins defensemen. In 1996–7, the thirty-seven-year-old scored his 1,340th career point, more than any other Bruin of any position. He scored 10 or more goals in every season until his last one, including the lockout-shortened 1994–5 season. In 2000, he became the all-time scoring leader among NHL defensemen, when he reached 1,520 points. He ended his NHL career with 1,579 points in 1,612 regular-season games and 180 points in 214 playoff games.

Bourque was named a first-team NHL all-star twelve times between 1979 and 1996, and once more in 2001. Only Gordie Howe earned as many first-team berths. Bourque was also named to the second team six times, for a total of nineteen all-star honors. Howe, who had twenty-three, is the only player with more.

The first player to appear in nineteen consecutive NHL all-star games, Bourque was named the most valuable player of the 1996 game. He shares an all-star-game record with 13 assists. In his first NHL season, 1979–80, he won the Calder Trophy as the league’s best rookie. He won the Norris Trophy, as the season’s best defenseman, five times between 1987 and 1994. In 1992, he was awarded the King Clancy Trophy for leadership and service to the community. In 1998, The Hockey News editors listed Bourque as the fourteenth-best NHL player of all time. In 2003, he received the Lester Patrick Trophy for outstanding service to hockey.

Bibliography

“Bourque by the Numbers.” Sports Illustrated, 20 June 2001, p. 74.

Dryden, Steve, editor. The Hockey News 1998–99 Yearbook. The Hockey News, 1998.

Dryden, Steve, editor. The Top One Hundred NHL Players of All Time. The Hockey News, 1999.

Hollander, Zander, editor. The Complete Encyclopedia of Hockey. 4th ed., Visible Ink Press, 1993.

McConnachie, David, editor. The National Hockey League Official Guide and Record Book, 1999–2000. Triumph Books, 1999.

Nichols, John. The History of the Boston Bruins. Creative Education, 2004.

Otárola, Miguel, and Andy Rosen. "Ray Bourque Will Lose His License for 225 Days after Admitting to OUI." Boston Globe, 6 July 2016, www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/07/06/bourque-admits-oui-andover-crash/d7dFMUEjRMLXUoPrxCzc5N/story.html. Accessed 24 Mar. 2017.

Shalin, Mike, editor. Ray Bourque: Bruins Legend. Sports, 2000.