Ray Bourque

Boston Bruins alumni legends, including Ray Bourque, Rick Middleton, and Terry O'Reilly, will take the ice against area high school hockey players and other local residents in a fund-raising game from 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday in the Whiston-Bragdon Arena at The Governor's Academy in Byfield. To make this "Bruins Skate for Nate" event a success, teams from Newburyport, Amesbury, Pentucket, and Triton high schools have set aside their "river rivalry" to come together in support of this fund-raising effort to benefit the Nathaniel Bibaud Recovery Fund.

The defending Stanley Cup-champion Boston Bruins acquired forward Brian Rolston and defenseman Mike Mottau from the New York Islanders at the trade deadline on Monday without giving up anyone from their NHL roster. Both players have experience in the city. Rolston played for the Bruins from 2000-04, and Mottau went to Boston College. "To be able to go to a contender and have a chance at the Stanley Cup and repeating on a Stanley Cup team is quite a thrill," Mottau said. "I'll do whatever it takes to add value to the team and I think I'm more prepared to do it now — just...

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Bill Estabrooks, the province’s Cabinet minister for transportation, arrived in his living room ready for bear and took out the heavy artillery. The big guns were his two front teeth, which Estabrooks ceremoniously plopped in a full beer glass as he flashed a gap-tooth grin and prepared to watch the Bruins square off Friday against the Vancouver Canucks. Such is the good-luck ritual that Estabrooks, 63, rolls out before every Bruins playoff game. It’s a passion that thousands of Nova Scotians share with Estabrooks, who grew up listening to Bruins games on a transistor...

Congrats to Melissa Bourque, daughter of Bruins Hall of Famer Ray Bourque and his wife, Christiane, on her recent marriage to Matthew Rogers. The happy couple got hitched at the State Room, and we're told Ray's words had the crowd alternately laughing and crying.

The Old Guy was patient. The Old Guy knew you’d come around. Yup, Old Man Hockey knew that deep down in your heart, lodged in the depth of your psyche, there resided a little round rubber disk, right next to that little white ball with the red stitches. Football and basketball have had their moments of glory during the past two decades, but Old Man Hockey knew that the two sports permanently embedded in the local DNA were baseball and, yes, hockey. Old Man Hockey watched in sadness as other sports elbowed him to the side.

TORONTO -- For 22 years, Ray Bourque had been preparing for last night. As he played each game of his National Hockey League career, he wasn't cognizant of how special he was, didn't want to think about it, didn't want to dwell on his talent and dominance as a defenseman. As he won each of his five Norris Trophies, he said he'd appreciate them most when his career was over. Last night, Bourque assumed his distinguished place in history with his official enshrinement into the Hockey Hall of Fame, joining fellow blue liners Paul Coffey and Larry Murphy in the players category and Phoenix Coyotes...

TORONTO -- Back in Boston, where Ray Bourque and Bobby Orr both made their names, there probably isn't a puck-loving, Bruins-worshiping baby boomer who would consider Bourque the better player. Well, time to consider it. Better yet, with Bourque entering the Hockey Hall of Fame here tonight, it is finally time to believe it. We could end this discussion right here on the numbers. By the stats alone, Bourque wins it skating away, backwards. He played 22 seasons to Orr's 12, averaged 73 games per season to Orr's 55, and finished as the No. 1 scoring defenseman of all time, leading in...

The defending Stanley Cup-champion Boston Bruins acquired forward Brian Rolston and defenseman Mike Mottau from the New York Islanders at the trade deadline on Monday without giving up anyone from their NHL roster. Both players have experience in the city. Rolston played for the Bruins from 2000-04, and Mottau went to Boston College. "To be able to go to a contender and have a chance at the Stanley Cup and repeating on a Stanley Cup team is quite a thrill," Mottau said. "I'll do whatever it takes to add value to the team and I think I'm more prepared to do it now —...

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Ray Bourque sleeps with the Stanley Cup. Sort of. "I've got a tattoo of the Stanley Cup on my right thigh," says the Bruins legend, who parted with the team after nearly 21 seasons and won a Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in the last game of his career, in 2001. He smiles at the thought, as the image of the 19-time All-Star defenseman walking into a New Hampshire tattoo parlor sinks in. "It hurt when I had it done . . . and no, no, I was stone sober.

TAMPA — The Bruins have not won the Stanley Cup since 1972, when most fans watched Bobby Orr on black-and-white televisions that had aluminum foil crunched around a UHF antenna. The Bruins have not been in the Stanley Cup finals since 1990, when Johnny Carson was still host of “The Tonight Show.’’ The last time most of us actually saw the Stanley Cup was in 2001, when Ray Bourque, who toiled 21 seasons for the Bruins, brought it here from Colorado to remind us what it looks like.

BYFIELD - There were no bright flashes of red above the net when Jamison Bibaud scored a breakaway goal against the Boston Bruins Alumni team Saturday night at Whiston-Bragdon Arena. But Bibaud's older brother, Nate, provided plenty of light. Nate could not stand up to cheer for Jamison, who had not played hockey since the fifth grade, but started skating again because Nate had asked him to. There were no claps and no high fives coming from Nate's seat behind the glass. But sitting in his wheelchair, he smiled broadly.

Boston Bruins alumni legends, including Ray Bourque, Rick Middleton, and Terry O'Reilly, will take the ice against area high school hockey players and other local residents in a fund-raising game from 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday in the Whiston-Bragdon Arena at The Governor's Academy in Byfield. To make this "Bruins Skate for Nate" event a success, teams from Newburyport, Amesbury, Pentucket, and Triton high schools have set aside their "river rivalry" to come together in support of this fund-raising effort to benefit the Nathaniel Bibaud Recovery Fund.

WILMINGTON - Ryan Button is a veteran rookie, and though that may be an oxymoron, it's not such a bad classification for the 20-year-old defenseman. Drafted in 2009 by the Bruins as a potential puck-moving blue liner, Button may be moving his career up ice - be it to here, in the Hub of Hockey, or Providence. "I've played four years in the Western League," Button said yesterday, as Boston's rookies wrapped up their work at Ristuccia Arena and prepared to resume their training today on Causeway Street.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Bill Estabrooks, the province’s Cabinet minister for transportation, arrived in his living room ready for bear and took out the heavy artillery. The big guns were his two front teeth, which Estabrooks ceremoniously plopped in a full beer glass as he flashed a gap-tooth grin and prepared to watch the Bruins square off Friday against the Vancouver Canucks. Such is the good-luck ritual that Estabrooks, 63, rolls out before every Bruins playoff game. It’s a passion that thousands of Nova Scotians share with Estabrooks, who grew up listening to...

The Old Guy was patient. The Old Guy knew you’d come around. Yup, Old Man Hockey knew that deep down in your heart, lodged in the depth of your psyche, there resided a little round rubber disk, right next to that little white ball with the red stitches. Football and basketball have had their moments of glory during the past two decades, but Old Man Hockey knew that the two sports permanently embedded in the local DNA were baseball and, yes, hockey. Old Man Hockey watched in sadness as other sports elbowed him to the side.

TAMPA — The Bruins have not won the Stanley Cup since 1972, when most fans watched Bobby Orr on black-and-white televisions that had aluminum foil crunched around a UHF antenna. The Bruins have not been in the Stanley Cup finals since 1990, when Johnny Carson was still host of “The Tonight Show.’’ The last time most of us actually saw the Stanley Cup was in 2001, when Ray Bourque, who toiled 21 seasons for the Bruins, brought it here from Colorado to remind us what it looks like.

His skills are obvious, bold and tantalizing, but it's going to take some time before we see all of what Sergei Gonchar has to offer, and what it means for the Bruins. "I would say five, maybe 10 games," said Gonchar, asked how long his transition to full flight will take, following last night's 2-2 tie with the Thrashers on Causeway Street. "But, it's hard to say. Sometimes it can be quicker, but we have enough time before the playoffs. " The postseason is a month away, and the 29-year-old Gonchar is only two games into his Black-and-Gold career.

Anyone who's kept even half an eye on hockey here the last 25 years could not have been surprised at the news yesterday that Ray Bourque was voted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Some things are good bets, and some things, like Bourque's induction, are mere formalities that await official rubber stamps or phone calls. The formality became official yesterday afternoon, when the 43-year-old Bourque learned that he would have his own etching placed in perpetuity in Toronto, along with two of the game's other greatest defensemen, Paul Coffey and Larry Murphy.

RALEIGH, N.C. - So now we get the best thing there is in Boston sports: another seventh game in the Garden. You won't be able to hear the second half of Rene Rancourt's anthem tomorrow night. The new building might feel like the old building. The rafters will rattle as the Bruins try to make some history back home in the Hub of Hockey. The Bruins squared their steel-cage match with the Hurricanes last night, smoking Carolina in the fast lane of Tobacco Road, 4-2, at the RBC Center on the campus of North Carolina State.

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Ray Bourque sleeps with the Stanley Cup. Sort of. "I've got a tattoo of the Stanley Cup on my right thigh," says the Bruins legend, who parted with the team after nearly 21 seasons and won a Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in the last game of his career, in 2001. He smiles at the thought, as the image of the 19-time All-Star defenseman walking into a New Hampshire tattoo parlor sinks in. "It hurt when I had it done . . . and no, no, I was stone sober.