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Published Jul 25, 2023 • Last updated 13 hours ago • 4 minute read
The great and graceful hockey life of Patrice Bergeron, for public consumption across Canada, changed at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.
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The great and graceful hockey life of Patrice Bergeron, for public consumption across Canada, changed at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.
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He began the Games as a defensive afterthought on Team Canada. Maybe the 12th or 13th forward. He ended the tournament with a gold medal around his neck, playing alongside Sidney Crosby, moving from fourth line to first in a lineup that included many of the best players in the world.
He was first line after that. Always. Everywhere. Every time. A year later he won his only Stanley Cup. He probably should have won three. And in 19 seasons with the Boston Bruins, the retiring Bergeron’s remarkable career can be quantified more in team numbers than his own incredible accomplishments. The Bruins won more games in Bergeron’s almost two decades than any other team in hockey. Cumulatively in the Bergeron years, Boston ranked first in the NHL in wins, first in points, first in goals against, first in penalty kill, first in faceoffs won.
That wasn’t in any way accidental: That was The Bergeron Way. He was so much a part of the package — and in a city renowned for sporting superstars — he was quietly, effectively, and efficiently brilliant and unique. “How many players in the league could be the game star and get no points,” said Hall of Fame coach Ken Hitchcock, who had Bergeron at two best-on-best Olympic Games. “He had games like that where he completely controlled the game. He completely controlled your team. “To me, he was the head of the snake. If you couldn’t neutralize him, if you couldn’t make him uncomfortable, you had no chance of beating them. To have a player like that, who carries the conscience of his team around, who is there for the kids, who is zero maintenance to have around, who’s a player you can put anywhere and with anybody if you’re a coach, that’s an unbelievable gift to have.”
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Boston, the marvelous sporting city, has always been about big names, more than almost anywhere else: Bobby Orr, Ted Williams, Tom Brady, Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Phil Esposito, Raymond Bourque. Many of the greatest players in all of sport. Bergeron may not have been Orr or Williams or Brady — he didn’t have to be — but on any list of the all-time greatest Bruins players, he would probably rank fourth or fifth after Orr, Bourque, Esposito, and maybe Eddie Shore.
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“He’s the defining 200-foot hockey player of his era and what a career he had,” said Ken Holland, now general manager in Edmonton, winner of four Stanley Cups in Detroit and who had Bergeron with two Olympic teams. “You don’t see this often. He was a player drafted in the second round and he went straight from the draft table to the National Hockey League. He never missed a beat.
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“My first thought about Patrice Bergeron: He’s a winner. You look at those numbers. Wins, goals against, penalty kill, faceoffs. He touches every one of those areas. He’s on power play. He’s on penalty kill. He’s on late in a game when you’re down a goal. He’s on late in the game when you’re up by a goal and protecting a lead. He plays in every situation and he played his entire career against the best players on the other teams.”
In each of the last 12 seasons of Bergeron’s career, all of them after the Olympics in Vancouver, he was a finalist for an NHL award. He won six Selke Awards as the best defensive forward and finished second in the voting four other times. In his last three NHL seasons, at the ages of 36, 37, and 38, his puck-possession numbers were comparatively better than those belonging to the legends of two generations, Connor McDavid and Crosby.
“I’ve always thought that the Selke Award was for the most complete player in the league and that’s why Bergie won it so often,” Hitchcock said. “He could score big goals, get big points, shut down your best player and be dependable every day under all circumstances. As a coach, you never had to talk to him. We’re talking about a once-in-a-lifetime player here.”
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This is not just the end for Bergeron, but really this is an end of an era for the record-breaking Bruins. There was no replacement for Brady in New England and there will be no replacement of anything similar for Bergeron in Boston. How can there be? The wingers on the Perfection Line — Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak — remain great. The big hole is at center. The big hole, in the short term, is impossible to fill.
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“I remember at the Olympics in Vancouver,” Hitchcock said, “we needed a guy to fit with Sid. In our wildest dreams, we didn’t think it would be him. He was way at the back of the bus for us. Then two games in, he’s at the front of the bus. He got there fast. We put him up there (with Crosby). They ended up being great together.”
They ended up playing together for Team Canada at the 2010 and 2014 Olympics and, after that, at the World Cup of Hockey. In all, Bergeron played 1,486 regular-season games for the Bruins, 170 playoff games, 43 games for a variety of Team Canadas, and never once…