The Bruins were one of the top teams in the NHL during much of Bourque's tenure, esp. 1979 to 1984 and 1987 to 1993. What were they turning around from?
Granted they had a window of contention, but they were never a Detroit or Colorado level powerhouse. The window came and went, with Bourque doing everything humanly possible in a losing effort.
After that, for a solid 5-6 years the storyline was “don’t waste Bourque”. THAT was what they never turned around from. By 1996 it was very obvious that the franchise was entering a dark era, and yet it took years before they finally pulled the trigger on a trade.
I never heard a single person say anything about Bourque suddenly being a "leader" because he won the Cup in his last game. Did you? I also never heard a single person ask "what's the matter with this guy?" during Bourque's time in Boston. More like the complete opposite.
I think you’re maybe misreading my point.
In the 1980/90s/early-00s there were three top-50 all time players who were phenomenal captains for about a zillion games with one franchise, and (unlike Mario) were universally respected.
Two of those three automatically get talked about in conversations like this. Why Yzerman and Sakic? Because they spent the better part of a decade being feted in the media for successfully leading their teams out of a dark era and being the centerpieces of multiple championships. Then on the fringes of the conversation it’s like, “Oh yeah, Bourque was good too... too bad he had to leave Boston to win a Cup.” Switch his circumstances with one of the other guys and we absolutely don’t get halfway through a thread before his name comes up, but that’s what narrative/lore is worth in this game’s culture.
Now... imagine a world where Bourque goes to Colorado and that team blows it repeatedly until he finally retires. IMO, there’s absolutely no way people overlook that. Even today, we still see the odd question about what went wrong for Marcel Dionne — and there’s no reason he should have to answer for anything given the context of his career. By all appearances, Joe Thornton’s next in line to get dragged for failing to be in the right place at the right time. It may not have been THAT bad for Bourque, who was more like a Dan Marino type figure, but he would absolutely have been reduced to a trivia question in a lot of minds. That single highlight of his Cup lift did immeasurable amounts of good.
Of course he spoke English. He was out of the Vancouver area and then played in the WHL. It's not like was running around Quebec City speaking Croatian...
I was just joking about him being media shy (I recall him being called Quoteless Joe) but it seems he actually was running around speaking Croatian at one point:
I am aware that it was a joke, but I recall that Sakic's first language (before he went to school) was Croatian.
I had no idea.
