There’s arguably no player villified more in the sport of hockey than Bruins pest Brad Marchand. He’s the classic “you hate to play against him, but would love to have him on your team” type of player.
As much as people tend to dislike Marchand’s antics out on the ice, the Bruins left winger knows exactly how to embrace all the hate and use it to his advantage.
This spring, the hockey world and Maple Leafs fans have once again been reminded why Marchand is a thorn in the side of just about everyone he encounters. On Thursday morning, Marchand released an article in the Player’s Tribune titled "Built for Boston" that gave fans an inside look as to why Marchand is the way he is.
Just check out the way he opens up the piece.
“If you like me, you’ll like this story. If you hate me, you’ll love it.”
The first real piece of meat in the article to chew on is when the Halifax native retelling a story from his childhood – in which he describes as a “famous story” – of when he was a kid in his neighbourhood was riding around his electric four-wheeler truck without his permission. Check out the word he uses to describe the kid.
"He takes off. He’s driving around our garage, laughing. I’m fuming, man. This little rat is driving around my truck, in my driveway, honking my horn, you know? After about 30 seconds, I couldn’t take it anymore. I jumped right in front of the truck and put my hand out, like, “You’ll have to run me over.”
He stopped, and I shoved the kid right out of the front seat. Yoink. He was on the ground crying, being a real baby about it, like, “Whyyyyyy.”I went riding off into the cul-de-sac, honking the horn. My mom says I had this little smirk on my face, too.”
That's right, one of his earliest memories he can think of when he was a kid was making one of the other kids on his street cry. You can just picture that little smirk on his face, too. He probably hasn’t made many NHL players cry, but you can see at such a young age how Marchand started to develop some his tendencies.
Marchand said he stormed the neighbourhood with about eight of his brothers and cousins, and that his whole family eventually moved to a different town with a little more space for the kids to roam around.
He then goes onto detail about moving away and how he fell in love with hockey with a couple of his new friends, and when he wasn’t playing hockey, him and his friends would be beating up his younger brother Jeff by one year, whom he described as an “unbelievable pest.”
“He was the original pest. He was my inspiration. We’d be out on the lake, shoveling snow for like two hours, and he’d claim that he had to do his science homework or something ridiculous like that. But of course he’d be inside on the computer typing away on AIM to some girl he liked. “Hey, hehe, lol. O.K. babe, BRB.”
"Then, miraculously, just as we were done shoveling off the last bit of snow, I’d see his little head pop up in the back window. He’d come out with his stick, like, “Hey, you guys done? Let’s play.”
"What a little runt. He was incredible. I respected his craft, honestly.”
Sounds like his little brother taught him well, even though Marchand admitted he’d whale on Jeff because he was a little pest. Imagine if NHL players used that logic and applied it to when they play the Bruins. Can you think of any pests on Boston that might get beat up because how they conduct themselves?
“My mom likes to say that I came out of the womb “mischievous.” I just liked the feeling of messing with other kids. I liked getting under their skin and making them react.”
There’s a lot to unpack in this article, and you should really read the full peice but we’ll skip ahead to where he goes in depth on why he transformed into the player he is today, and why his reputation around the league isn’t exactly the greatest.
"I have done things that have stepped over that line, and I’ve paid the price for it."
"Maybe it was my size, or just the way I was born, but I’ve always felt like you have to be willing to do anything — literally anything — in order to win. Even if that means being hated. Even if it means carrying around some baggage."
"If I played the game any other way, you absolutely would not know my name. You wouldn’t care enough to hate me, because I wouldn’t be in the NHL. The way I played the game got me noticed by junior teams, and it got me drafted by the Boston Bruins at 5’9”."
It’s hard to disagree with him there. Tons of players have gone through the junior ranks putting up 66 points in 68 games during their draft year like Marchand did, but not every player is going to make it to the next level. What Marchand lacked in size, he made up for it in his style of play. His talents would’ve probably taken him only so far, and he had to figure out a way to separate himself from his peers, hence why he started playing the role of an agitating pest to catch the eye of the scouts.
The Bruins have always been a team to walk the fine line of playing on the edge, which is exactly how Marchand plays. Sometimes he goes over that line, and that is why he has five suspensions to his name. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to throw out elbows and concuss players around the league, and he could still be just as effective if he wasn't as dirty.
Marchand credits Chris Kelly, Gregory Campbell, Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron and Claude Julien for teaching him how to grow from a 20-year-old kid fresh out of junior trying to find his way up to the NHL after graduating to pro hockey at the AHL level. From training, to eating, conducting himself away from the ice, Marchand was surrounded by veterans that allowed him to excel at the NHL level as a checking specialist with great offensive upside, and then morph into the superstar he is today.
“So I watched Patrice from day one, and I saw the ultimate professional. I don’t have many rules I live by, but one of my rules is: If you say anything bad about my brother, or about Patrice Bergeron, I’ll fight you. The guy is simply unbelievable. I’ve watched him play with broken bones, a punctured lung… a freaking punctured lung.”
The 29-year-old then gets into what it likes being despised by multiple fan bases, including the Vancouver Canucks.
“But you know what? All the heat I feel from fans in Vancouver and Toronto and Montreal means nothing compared to the love I feel from Boston."
I’ll never forget after we beat Vancouver in Game 7 to win the Cup, we flew back to Boston with the Cup, and as we stepped off the plane all the fans were lined up waiting for us, going crazy. One of the police officers came up to us and said, “The city is yours. Enjoy it.”
Remember this photo from after the Bruins beat the Canucks in 2011?
Well, here’s his explanation for that.
“Now, I know you’ve seen the pictures. In most of them, I am shirtless. But in my defense, I was 23 years old and I had just won the Stanley Cup. The whole week was a blur. The stories are pretty legendary. Most of them can’t be shared. But the backstory to that week is that right after we won, one of my buddies told me that the Blackhawks had partied for 16 days straight when they won the Cup.”
“So, me being competitive, it was my mission to top them.”
Marchand and the Bruins only made it to about “seven or eight” days before an unnamed person told them to stop partying.
The question is, will they get to that 16 mark this season if the Bruins can once again win the Stanley Cup?
You can read the full article by clicking below.
