Projo Bruins Blog

BOSTON (AP) -- The Boston Bruins have the shortest offseason in their history, and general manager Peter Chiarelli doesn't want his players spending too much time celebrating their Stanley Cup victory.

Chiarelli told the Bruins before setting them free for the summer to "keep an eye on the calendar."

The Bruins finished up their seven-game victory over the Vancouver Canucks in the Stanley Cup finals on June 15. Then came the parade and a whole lot of parties. But training camp is less than three months away.

Free agency begins on Friday, and Chiarelli says the Bruins don't expect to be big players in the market. He's told Tomas Kaberle and Michael Ryder to see what's out there. The Bruins would like to have them back at the right price.

The Boston Bruins selected five players on second day of the NHL draft, leading off with second-round pick Alexander Khokhlachev, a 5-10, 172-pound forward from Moscow.

Khokhlachev was the 40th overall pick. Later in the day, Boston took 17-year-old forward Anthony Camara, of Toronto, in the third round with the 81st overall pick; Brian Ferlin, a 19-year-old forward from Jacksonville, Fla., in the fourth round with the 121st overall pick; Robby O'Gara, a 17-year-old defenseman from Massapequa, N.Y., in the fifth round with the 151st overall pick; and Lars Volden, an 18-year-old goalie from Oslo, Norway, in the sixth round with the 181st overall pick.

Khokhlachev scored 34 goals with 42 assists in 67 games played last season with the Windsor Spitfieres of the Ontario Hockey League. He added 9 goals and 11 assists in 18 playoff games.

"He's a very driven kid for his age," Spitfires coach Bob Jones told NHL.com. "At age 16 and 17, you have to crack the whip a bit and change the mood sometimes or the mentality, but that's one thing he's blessed with, his work ethic. It's second to none."

Camara, a 6-1, 194-pound left winger, is known as an intense, physical competitor. Playing with the Saginaw Spirit of the OHL last season, he scored eight goals and nine assists in 64 games, while compiling 132 penalty minutes.

Ferlin, a 6-1, 196-pounder who spent the last two seasons with the Indiana Ice of the United States Hockey League, will attend Cornell University in the fall; while O'Gara, a 6-3, 195-pounder who played for the Massachusetts prep school powerhouse Milton Academy last season, has committed to Yale.

Volden, who is 6-3 and 198 pounds, had a .907 saves percentage and 2.76 goals against average in 24 games last season for the Espoo Blues of Finland.

According to reports by The Boston Globe and CSNNE.com, the defending Stanley Cup Boston Bruins will host the Philadelphia Flyers in their home opener on Oct. 6. The NHL will release the full 2011-12 regular-season schedule Thursday afternoon.

By Dan Hickling
Special to the Journal

It was hard enough for Marc Savard to watch his mates win the Stanley Cup without him.
It would have been so much harder not to.

Which is why the concussed Bruins center was so determined to stay engaged, both in person at TD Garden for Game Six, and via television throughout.

Savard, who missed all but 25 games this year with post-concussion symptoms, was on hand at the Garden to help his teammates celebrate.

"It was amazing," said Savard, making his first public comments since February. "I mean how the boys gelled and everybody came together. And it was tough for me to watch at times obviously, but it was special -- that's for sure."

Savard, who was Boston's leading point-getter from 2006 to 2009, has suffered a string of devastating head injuries that have left him reeling.

Headaches, bouts of depression and memory loss have been his life's norm, although, he said, he can see some encouraging signs.

"Yeah, I'm feeling better," he said, "but I still have my days. My memory is the biggest thing -- my memory isn't very good. Short-term memory stuff is terrible. Mornings are tough, but besides that, I've been doing a lot better that's for sure."

Savard, who is under contract to the Bruins through the 2014-15 season, has stowed away any thought of making on-ice comeback, at least for the time being.

The off-ice comeback has been tortuous enough.

"It's really the furthest thing from my mind right now," he said, "to be honest. I just want to enjoy it here and let the boys take the spotlight here because they earned it."

Using the term "they" instead of "we" suggests a sense of disconnect between Savard and the rest of his mates.

However, the Bruins are hoping to give him a measure of inclusion by having his name inscribed on the Stanley Cup along with the other Bruins players.

Having fallen a little short of the NHL's 40 games played threshold, the Bruins have to petition to get the names of Savard -- and rookie defenseman Steven Kampfer -- memorialized on the Cup.

BOSTON (AP) -- The route is set for the Bruins' victory parade.

The Stanley Cup champions will board duck boats for the parade that will begin at 11 a.m. on Saturday at the TD Garden.

The parade will proceed down Causeway Street and turn left on Staniford Street, then turn left on Cambridge Street, right on Tremont, and right on Boylston before ending in Copley Square.

City officials said Thursday that traffic will be shut down on the parade route starting at 9 a.m. and parking restrictions will be in effect.

Officials are strongly urging parade-goers to use public transportation. The MBTA says it will offer bus and subway service comparable to a weekday rush hour throughout Saturday.

The T will also offer a special $10 round trip ticket on commuter rail.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Boston Bruins' Stanley Cup-clinching victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday night earned the highest television rating for an NHL game in 37 years.

Boston's 4-0 win in Game 7 on NBC earned a 4.8 rating and 8 share. That's the best since a 7.6/27 for Boston-Philadelphia in 1974.

It's up 2 percent from last year's deciding Game 6 between Chicago and Philadelphia and up 12 percent from the most recent Game 7 in 2009 between Detroit and Pittsburgh.
The seven games averaged 4.6 million viewers on NBC and Versus, the most for a series split between network and cable involving a Canadian team.

The game earned a 43.4/64 in Boston, the best for a hockey game since records began being kept for the market in 1991. That's higher than any game in the Celtics' last two NBA finals.

Ratings represent the percentage of all homes with televisions tuned into a program. Shares represent the percentage of all homes with TVs in use at the time.

Boston and Providence were the top two cities in the nation. Boston posted a 43.4 rating and a 64 share. Providence had a 25.9 rating and a 38 share.

Ratings represent the percentage of all homes with televisions tuned into a program. Shares represent the percentage of all homes with TVs in use at the time. Overnight ratings measure the country's largest markets.

AP photo / The Candian Press, Geoff Howe

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) -- Almost 150 people required hospital treatment overnight as rioters swept through downtown Vancouver following a Canucks loss to the Boston Bruins in the decisive Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final.

Vancouver Coastal Health spokeswoman Anna Marie D'Angelo said Thursday three stabbing victims have been admitted and an unidentified man is in critical condition with head injuries after a fall.

She said most of the rioting victims were treated at St. Paul's Hospital in downtown Vancouver, while about 40, including the stabbing cases and the head injury patient, were being treated at Vancouver General Hospital.

Rioting and looting left cars burned, stores in shambles and windows shattered over a roughly ten block radius of the city's main shopping district.

Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu has called a news conference for later Thursday.
Vancouver city councilor Suzanne Anton said the rioting has shaken the city and overshadowed the hockey team's playoff run.

"I would never have believed that Vancouver would be a city where their would be looting," Anton said. "I just feel such a profound sense of disappointment. We like to think we live in paradise here in Vancouver. It's hard to imagine here."

It was similar to the scene that erupted in the city in 1994 following the Canucks' Game 7 loss to the New York Rangers.

Anton said there was no loss of life or police brutality in this latest incident. She said dozens of volunteers patrolled the city's entertainment strip on Thursday, picking up debris and garbage.

AP photo / The Canadian Press, Darryl Dick

One of the volunteers, Al Cyrenne, carried his broom downtown as cleaned up the damage.

"I'm all choked up," he said, as he surveyed broken windows and debris on a downtown street.

"I can't believe the scene. Just talking about it bring me to tears. I can't believe the people of Vancouver would do this. It's just a few idiots."

While police said it was mostly young thugs responsible for the mayhem overnight, an equally young crew turned up in jeans and rubber gloves, some with Canucks jerseys, all carrying plastic garbage bags.

Dozens of remorseful and dismayed commuters crowded around the smashed and plywood covered display windows at the flagship Bay store, a historical building that was the first focus of rampaging looters Wednesday night.

Someone had tacked a rough, hand-painted sign that read: "On behalf of my team and my city, I am sorry." People waited in line to sign it.

Across the street at London Drugs, the windows were also smashed.

Wynn Powell, the president and CEO of London Drugs, estimated the damage there at $1 million alone.

Powell, sounding angry, said the looting wasn't the random consequence of a mob mentality.

"The rioters attacked us for two hours before they got into the store. They were down attacking the stores of Vancouver to try to steal product."

AP photo / The Canadian Press, Geoff Howe