``As I came out, Peter was just making his way to the door," the elder Chiarelli recalled yesterday, speaking by phone from his home in Ottawa. ``He's just beaming, from ear to ear, and he looks at me and says, all excited, `Hey, Dad, I can ride the bike now!' I looked a little closer, and he had skinned both knees and both elbows, and I was furious -- there was this healthy flow of blood in all areas. He hadn't the slightest idea how to ride it, went out and got himself all cut up."
More than 35 years later, a proud father, one of college hockey's all-time greatest goal scorers, figures that cherished and gritty bit of family lore is a pretty good indication of what kind of person the Bruins introduced Wednesday as their new general manager.
``He has determination like you can't believe," said the 74-year-old Chiarelli, whose bountiful goal scoring helped lead the RPI Engineers to the NCAA Division 1 hockey championship in 1954. ``Anyway, that's what the Bruins are getting -- and it's also what the Senators didn't know they had."
Worked his way up Peter Chiarelli, 41, is technically still under the employ of the Senators, and is legally bound to remain in Ottawa as the club's assistant GM for the next six weeks. He was here Wednesday for his introductory news conference and did his diplomatic best at trying to explain the Byzantine entanglements of the NHL-brokered mediation agreement that set forth the conditions of his move from Ottawa to Boston. About all the Hub of Hockey knows about Chiarelli is that he grew up in Ottawa, captained the Harvard hockey team (Class of '87), and after a very short flirtation with pro hockey in Great Britain after leaving Cambridge, promptly returned to school in Ottawa to earn his law degree, and was called to the Ontario Bar in 1993.
