Father knows best
So what was life like before these players arrived in the Hub of Hockey? For five Bruins, the tales are best told by the four dads and one brother -- among the 17 family members -- who recently accompanied the team on a five-day road trip.
Patrice Bergeron/Gerard Cleary
Gerard Cleary and his wife, Sylvie Bergeron, figured something had to be wrong.
"It was the most crazy thing," said Cleary, thinking back to their son's initial hockey steps at that rink in Quebec City. "Patrice was 5 years old when we first took him, and all he did -- for two months! -- was sit in the net. That was it. Twice a week, for one hour, he went to the rink, we sat in the stands, and all he did was sit there."
If this was the fast track to the NHL, little Patrice Bergeron-Cleary didn't appear interested in the ride. According to Cleary, the coach repeatedly came over to Patrice and asked him to stand up and join the rest of the players. Quite content, Patrice politely told the coach, "No, I'm having fun here," and continued to watch.
Up in the stands, Mom and Dad began to think of other sports their son could try.
"Eventually, I said to her, 'It's over, we will not come back here,' " recalled Clearly. "We get in the car, and we are driving home, and we tell Patrice, 'Look, if you want to do something else, that's OK. No problem. You are not obligated to play hockey.'
"He looks at us and says, 'No, I love that. I love what I do this morning.' I want to go back.' So, OK, we go again, and he sat there in the net the whole time long. He sat and looked at the other guys. And never, never, never skated."
Finally, after some eight weeks and 16 hours of sitting there, Patrice one day got out of the net and into the game. From that first stride, recalled his father, he skated well, and quickly became the best skater there.
"He was learning," said Cleary. "Patrice has always been learning by looking. So, I am sure he was sitting there and learning how to skate. In his mind, [when] he knows how to do it, he [does] it. Yes, unbelievable, but it's Patrice. He is always the guy that wants to learn, who wants to be the best. And I think he is doing well."
"He was just a kid when I got him his first set of golf cubs," said the senior Savard. "They were ladies clubs, lefthanded. First time out, he shot 100."
The Savards lived in Ontario, just outside of Ottawa, and Marc was a Maple Leafs fan. A gifted passer from the start, he also yearned to be a goalie, and idolized then-Toronto netminder Felix Potvin. When he took to the pavement to play street hockey, Marc always played net, and wore pads that he hand-painted in Toronto blue and white, identical to Potvin's pads.
All the while, Marc kept telling his father he wanted to play goal in "regular" hockey.
"I wouldn't let him," recalled his father. "For one thing, he was small -- still is -- and the pads were expensive. I told him, 'If you're 15 years old, and you're an average player, OK, try it.' "
The "average" day never arrived, but Savard's dad ultimately relented. He borrowed pads from a friend and sent his son off to follow his puck-stopping dream.
"He didn't do so good," said his dad, standing outside a practice rink in sunny Florida recently while his son practiced with the Bruins. "After two games, he came back, handed me the stuff, and just said, 'I'm not playing goal.' "
Just not as much fun as scoring goals?
"Unh-uh," said his father, cracking the slightest smile. "He was afraid of the puck."
"One day we're out there playing, and one of the inmates decides he's going to escape. On skates! Well, he takes off across the field, and the prison had to be, oh, a half-mile from the road. Not very bright, eh? By the time the guy made it to the road, the guards were there to pick him up."
In the years Shean first picked up a stick, his dad was the area's unofficial athletic director, and he oversaw the construction of an outdoor rink, complete with warming shed, in the village center.
"Funny how things stick with you," said Brian. "But we'd put our leather hockey gloves on the wood-burning stove in the hut, eh? I can still smell those."
Shean didn't immediately take to hockey, or to skating. But he loved to shoot the puck. According to his dad, Shean, at 3 or 4 and still unable to skate, was constantly bowled over during games in the village center -- the victim of shooting his own puck into games between older kids and adults.
"He was always, always, always out there, just shooting," recalled Brian, who ultimately enrolled Shean in figure skating lessons to find his trademark giddy-up. "Boy, was he resilient. He'd get knocked down, and get right back up. No crying. No sitting in the shed to get warm. Just always out there, shooting."
"Our dad would have loved this trip," said Jeff, who played hockey at Princeton, and in fact was the student host/border when a young Peter Chiarelli, Boston's first-year general manager, visited the New Jersey campus during his college tours. "Dad especially would have loved seeing Jason play for the Bruins, you know, crack the NHL again after playing a year in Switzerland. He'd be so proud of that."
Jim wasn't much of a hockey player, but he knew enough about the game to help a teenage Jason make a key career decision. Jason also loved baseball, and was a pretty good pitcher, leading his father to build him a mound in the backyard. When junior hockey came calling, Jason wasn't sure which dream to follow.
"And my dad said, 'Do you think really you're going to make it in baseball, coming from Ontario?' " recalled Jason. "You know, he had a point. Good decision. I went to Hamilton [Ontario Hockey League], and he came to a lot of those games, driving up there in his Reliant K-car."
Jim York worked for years with Tourism Canada, and by his sons' account, was polite and mild-mannered. Most of the time.
"But one night . . . we never saw this side of him," recalled Jason. "He went crazy. Jeff gets booted from the game, and my older brother, Jamie, was getting pummeled by the other team's goon. The ref was drunk, and my dad knew it. He comes down from the stands, grabs the ref, belts him, and then goes over and pulls the guy off of Jamie.
"I wasn't even born yet, but that story's been passed down through the family. Nothing got him mad, unless something happened to his kids."
"I'd go get me 10 bushels of apples, and come home and have 'em sold, and then let Tim use that money to buy seven bushels," said the proud dad of the Bruins' No. 1 netminder. "Then Tim would sell 'em, and that was his money. After expenses, he was making 60 bucks a day. No taxes."
And young Tim was persistent.
"If he knocked on the door, and they were home, and they wouldn't answer, then he'd go knock on the window," said his dad.
The Thomases had to work extra hard to scrape up $300 to take Tim to a tournament in New York one winter. Nearly 25 years later, father and son are sketchy on the details. To the goalie's recollection, the rink was in Western New York, in or near Buffalo. But they both remember the location of the ticket turnstile.
"Exactly the level of Tim's head," recalled his dad. "He got running around with his buddies, didn't see it, and bam, it knocked him cold. That was it. No tournament. Never got in a game."
Years later, the elder Thomas recalled, he was standing next to his son in another rink when Tim was on the verge of taking a big step in his junior career. His father was nervous, because he had seen the other goalies perform, and he knew Tim would be challenged to make the team.
"I mean, these guys were good, and I knew it. I wanted Tim to be prepared if he got cut," recalled his dad. "I told Tim, 'Man, these guys are really good, so don't be disappointed if you don't make it.' He stopped, looked at me and said, 'Shut up. I'm making it.' And so, he did. He made it as a third-string goalie. I shut up, and he made it."
Asked if he felt his son's journey to the NHL felt like a fairy tale, the elder Thomas said, "Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Really, it's better than a fairy tale, though. Because it's true."
Have son, will travel
For 17 members of the Bruins, the recent five-day trip from Toronto to Florida to Boston was a family affair: Sixteen fathers and one brother went along for the ride.
| Father, age | Hometown | Occupation | Son |
| Dale Alberts, 59 | Eden Prairie, Minn. | Retired financial planner | Andrew Alberts |
| Harold Allen, 59 | Hull | Retired, | Bobby Allen |
| Louis Bochenski, 51 | Woodbury, Minn. | Sales director, medical products | Brandon Bochenski |
| Gerard Cleary, 49 | Quebec City | Foreman, Quebec City Water Dept. | Patrice Bergeron |
| Brian Donovan, 56 | North Bay, Ontario | Sales, restaurant equipment | Shean Donovan |
| Andy Ference, 56 | Sherwood Park, Alb. | Dentist | Andrew Ference |
| Nicholas Habscheid, 83 | Swift Current, Sask. | Farmer | Mark Habscheid (coach) |
| Phil Kessel, 48 | Madison, Wis. | Property managment | Phil Kessel |
| Steve Mowers, 61 | Whitesboro, N.Y. | Sales, medical equipment | Mark Mowers |
| Ian Murray, 63 | Bridgewater, N.S. | Installs highway weighing scales | Glen Murray |
| Roger Nilsson, 53 | Ytterby, Sweden | Sales, meat | P.J. Axelsson |
| Bob Savard, 52 | Orleans, Ont. | Proprietor, handyman company | Marc Savard |
| Johan Sturm, 51 | Landshut, Germany | Manager, construction company | Marco Sturm |
| Tim Thomas, 53 | Winchester | Sales, used cars and antiques | Tim Thomas |
| a-Jeff York, 43 | Manotic, Ont. | President/COO Giant Tiger Stores | Jason York |
| b-Bob Boyes, 57 | Mississauga, Ont. | Grammar school principal | Brad Boyes (St. Louis) |
| b-Bob Mara, 59 | Belmont | VP Sales, The Answer Group | Paul Mara (NY Rangers) |
a -- Jeff York is Jason York's brother
b -- traded since father/son trip 