Copyright Boston.com
“It’ll always be in my heart. It’ll always be a special place.” COMMENTARY In the same barn where he skated in over 500 games, Brad Marchand was out of his comfort zone. For the first time in his 17-year NHL career, the 37-year-old winger found cheers cascading down upon him in an opponent’s rink. And for the first time since the quick-witted agitator presumably ever etched his skates into a frozen sheet, Marchand — always primed for a chirp and a subsequent barrage of verbal barbs — was rendered speechless. Sixteen years to the date since a pugnacious, undersized winger out of Halifax first donned a black-and-gold sweater on the Garden ice, Marchand was back on Causeway Street Tuesday night. As evidenced by the Panthers garb draped over the veteran winger, plenty has changed for both Marchand and the Bruins over the last year. But one would be hard-pressed to discern Marchand’s current allegiance — given the cacophony of cheers that rained down on the Florida forward. “I’m so grateful for the moment, and very appreciative for it — for what the Bruins did to kind of put that together, and the love and support the fans have showed me,” Marchand said of the video tribute and reception that played out on Tuesday. “Not just tonight, but throughout my entire career here. I always loved playing here and loved putting the jersey on and wearing my heart on my sleeve.” Marchand’s anticipated return to Boston, in some respects, followed a fitting script for the former captain. The emotion that Marchand carries on every shift — occasionally fueling post-whistle scraps and face-washes; and oftentimes serving as his club’s on-ice shot of adrenaline — was put on display as soon as his video tribute commenced during the first media timeout between Boston and Florida. A stone-faced reaction was never going to be in the cards. Not for a player who long served as the emotional heartbeat of this franchise. As the cheers rained down from the rafters, so did the tears for the former Bruins stalwart. “I was trying not to cry,” Marchand said. “That was what I was trying to do. As soon as I saw my kids on the screen, it kind of hit like a ton of bricks. The memories and the emotions of everything — just the years and the years, the incredible times — it just kind of comes pouring into your memory. “It’s just crazy to see. There’s a lot of things that I forget, and the years all kind of bunch together. Careers go by fast … To see a snapshot of that — it just brings everything back. Just the amount of pride that I had — that I have — and that I played here as part of this organization, I just couldn’t hold it in.” Marchand’s skill and tenacity — tools that helped him evolve from fourth-line pest to top-line stalwart to likely Hall-of-Famer — were once again put on display against his former club. It took just five seconds after the puck had dropped Tuesday for Marchand to snap a backhanded biscuit into Jeremy Swayman’s pads. Just 28 seconds later, he drew a penalty. After just 1:01 of game action had elapsed, Marchand and the Panthers were ahead — with Marchand securing the primary helper on Mackie Samoskevich’s power-play tally. But beyond Marchand’s two-assist showing in Florida’s 4-3 win over Boston, it was the veteran’s heart — one that ingratiated him to this fanbase and wove him into the fabric of the Bruins’ identity for 16 seasons — that stood out to his current bench boss in Paul Maurice. “Those tears are real,” Maurice said of Marchand during ESPN’s broadcast. “He just wears his heart on his sleeve. He had so many great moments here, won a Stanley Cup here. He’ll always be a Bruin at heart.” The TD Garden video board chronicled Marchand’s past triumphs in Boston. The high-flying leaps after rifling pucks past Roberto Luongo. The physics-defying dangles that broke opponents’ hearts and raised the decibel level at TD Garden. The post-whistle antics that made him a beloved heel in black and gold. But Marchand isn’t stuck in the past these days. There’s still plenty of tread on his tires, and the Panthers forward is charting his new path in Florida as he tries to win a second Stanley Cup with his current team. Such is the nature of the business, one that elicits both melancholy and gratitude for Marchand at this stage of his career. “They want to win as much, or more, than we want to win,” Marchand said of Bruins fans. “If we lose a game, they’ll go to work pissed the next day. They just love the team. … Ray Bourque said it to me when I was 19. I had dinner with him one night. “And he just said, ‘You need to embrace every person that you come across, every fan.’ Because when you’re done down the road — they move on and they care about the next guys that come in and they kind of forget about you.” It’s a mindset that kept Marchand grounded as the Nova Scotia native embraced Boston and this fanbase as his own. A mindset that, admittedly, is flawed. Because as cheers of “Mar-chy! Mar-chy!” echoed throughout TD Garden — the same barn where No. 63 will one day hover high above the ice — Bruins fans made one thing abundantly clear. A player like Brad Marchand isn’t one who is easily forgotten. “I’ve been here for seven months,” he said of his current team. “I’ve been in Boston for 15 years. So when you go from being a kid with a dream, and then you grow up and you have a family and become a man, and you build an entire life in this city — it’s just different. “It’ll always be in my heart. It’ll always be a special place.”
