Roger Naples made his final visit to TD Garden in April 2015, when he participated in presenting the Eddie Shore Award to Bruins winger Milan Lucic.
The Shore award for “exceptional hustle and determination” was established by the team’s most loyal fans, the Gallery Gods, whose original domain was the second balcony of the original Boston Garden.
Naples — who went by a shortened version of his last name, Napolitano — helped found the Gallery Gods in 1937, when he and his friends sat in the Garden watching Shore, a Hall of Fame defenseman. And 78 seasons later, he closed out his decades at the Bruins’ home rink by standing in a corner of the ice with three generations of Shore’s family.
A lifelong Revere resident who served as the city’s recreation director for more than 40 years, Mr. Napolitano died of congestive heart failure Oct. 13 in Massachusetts General Hospital. The longtime Gallery Gods president was 97.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/b...y-gods-dies/jsT2QBHYjbyKieuWlXYXpJ/story.html