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Friday, November 3, 2000
One more try for Bourque
By Nancy Marrapese-Burrell
Special to ESPN.com
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Back in February, the Bruins' already-depressing season hit rock bottom
when defenseman Marty McSorley took a baseball swing to the head of Vancouver
Canuck Donald Brashear. The incident sent tremors through the NHL in general
and the Bruins' dressing room in particular.
Ray Bourque, then the club's captain, was in shock like many of his
teammates and it wasn't long after that jolting road trip that Bourque asked
to be traded from the city he'd played his entire 21-year career. Nothing had
gone right for Boston from the beginning. There was the 0-5-4 start, the
alarming number of injuries to key personnel and the constant losing. When
McSorley went temporarily insane, Bourque said he had never seen anything
like it in his life.
|  | | Ray Bourque will be patrolling the blueline on Colorado for at least one more year. |
In Boston's awful season, Bourque himself was struggling as much as
anyone else. He was trying to carry the same heavy load, playing 30 minutes a
game, but they were the equivalent of serving hard time. He was questioning
his abilities, his passion, his career. In short, he was seriously pondering
retirement at the age of 39. His exit from Boston to the Colorado Avalanche
was a rebirth that exceeded even the veteran's expectations. He wanted to see
what, if anything, he had left and he wanted to compete for the only prize
that had eluded him -- the Stanley Cup.
Less than four months ago, it seemed a foregone conclusion that Bourque
would hang up his skates. On Wednesday, Bourque re-signed with the Avalanche
for one year at $5.5 million plus an option rather than test the waters of
unrestricted free agency. Bourque, who took a half million-dollar paycut to
stay put, said he was never really tempted to see how much more money he could get on the open market. Imagine that in the
culture of sports in the year 2000.
Bourque is a relative newcomer to Denver but remains a beloved icon in
Boston, a classy family man who has never been driven by ego or money. He
could've fueled a bidding war for his services and generated a payday
far in excess of what the Avalanche signed him for, but Bourque has always
been more about quality of life and hockey than quantity of the zeros on the end
of his paycheck.
Roger Clemens, when pitching for the Red Sox, said he would only go to
another team in order to be closer to his Texas home. When he ended up in
Toronto, which last we checked on a North American map is a heck of a long
way from the Longhorn State, it only proved the cynics right.
When former Red Sox slugger Mo Vaughn said it wasn't about the money
when he went to Anaheim even though it was very much about the money, it
proved the cynics correct again.
In sports circa 2000, it's always about the money. It's about slick
agents and slick marketing, about squeezing every dime you can out of your
employer. That mentality has invaded the hockey world over the last several
years as it has invaded society at large.
Contract holdouts seem to increase every year. There are outrageously
foolish decisions being made by some players -- Alexei Yashin for dishonoring
his contract and Nikolai Khabibulin for sitting out an entire year on
"principle" with no hope of recouping what he's lost.
Then there's Bourque. His arrival in Denver was the picture of the
proverbial kid in the candy store. He played the same number of minutes he
played in Boston, sometimes more, but he looked like a man 10 years younger.
He had the enthusiasm and tireless legs of a rookie, and he provided the shot
of adrenaline that led Colorado, which was in danger of not even making the
playoffs at the time of Bourque's arrival, into the NHL equivalent of the final
four. It was the first time Bourque had made it as far as the conference
championship since 1992.
By signing with the Avalanche, Bourque feels confident that he and his
club can reach the ultimate goal next year.
"We competed for the Stanley Cup and it rejuvenated my game," said
Bourque in a conference call.
"We were just short of the ultimate goal and I
kind of feel like we've got some unfinished business. I really enjoyed the
team. I feel really good about how I fit in and I've been hoping and thinking
that things might work out this way."
Nancy Marrapese-Burrell of the Boston Globe writes a weekly national NHL column for ESPN.com.
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ALSO SEE
Bourque staying with Avalanche, signs 1-year deal
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