A Championship written by Thomas Regan
The Bruins won it for Southie
As the Boston Bruins crowded around Lord Stanley’s Cup for their team’s celebratory picture Wednesday night, all of Boston celebrated with them. Growing up in the hockey-rich community of South Boston, I along with all of my fellow natives have waited our whole lives for a Bruins championship. For my first fifteen years, I dreamt of personally hoisting that cup with my own Bruins jersey on after I scored the game winner in the 7th game. Since then, of course, my dream of being the hockey hero of the city has become unrealistic (I may be making an unbelievable comeback to the sport and be ushered straight to the NHL, so I won’t say it is impossible, yet.)
Since I was 8 years old
Watching the Bruins, and simply being a fan, has been taken to a whole new level when a person, who grows up playing competitive hockey his or her whole life, hangs up their skates. Since I hung up my own competitive skates, I must say I have again become the biggest Bruins fan since I was 8 years old idolizing Cam Neely and Ray Bourque.
So as the Bruins’ staff, coaches, and especially the players celebrated their season and their winning of the CUP, the whole city of Boston, and especially the town of South Boston, celebrated equally as much. As Zedano Chara, Patrice Bergeron, Mark Recchi and the rest of the Bruins gathered around their Cup, a group of Southie guys gathered around our own Cup outside the renowned Lst Tavern.
Instead of the highly-paid, highly-skilled athletes basking in the success of their own hard work, it was 25 kids who grew up playing hockey together and who are now semi-washed up, ex-players basking in the glory of the Bruins. Though we weren’t on the ice, we felt like we were right there with them. The Bruins earned it by fighting through 25 grueling games of Stanley Cup hockey action. We earned it by fighting our way through 25 games of playoff hockey in the bar scene of Southie.
They played hard; we played hard
They scored countless goals against such highly esteemed goalies as Carey Price and Roberto Luongo (chump); we scored seats at bars hours before the puck dropped. They made checks on some of the best players in the world; we cashed our checks for expensive tickets to games. Tim Thomas grew his beard and stopped the most shots in the history of the Stanley Cup Playoffs; I grew my hair and took many shots of my own. They played hard; we played hard.
The Sox of ’04 and ’07, The Pat’s of ’01, ’03, and ’04, and the Celtics of ’08 won their championships for Boston, The 2011 Boston Bruins won their championship for Southie.
See you at the Victory Parade!
Thomas Regan is a life-long resident of South Boston and local legend.