Looks like he could be hanging them up. Better get him back with the organization if he’s interested.
I don't think that's going to happen.
I suspect Z wants to explore all post playing career options. Who knows, perhaps he'll put that real estate license to use.
What I do hope: That if he keeps his home in Slovakia, and his place in FLA, he also keeps his digs in the North End, and calls Boston home at least some part of every year.
From all I know, what little I know, Zdeno Chara is a tremendous athlete, first ballot HHOF inductee, great teammate, true leader, genuine friend, and fantastic human being.
Perhaps partly, and unfairly, because of Cam's somewhat dubious tenure as Boston's President (I *still* don't know what he does), Z has supplanted Neely as my all time favorite Bruin.
This man literally willed himself to become not just an NHL player --and there is no "just" in becoming an NHL player -- but a singular, seminal defensman. No hype: One of the greatest to ever play the game.
WE were extremely fortunate to have Z, his incredible work ethic, his example, his leadership, for over fifteen years.
So many in this town, especially in sports media, remain ignorant, willfully so, of great Bruins players like Patrice, and Z when he was here.
Why? I can't speak to the former, other than to say dopey, casual fans don't know jack about jack. Or, as it were, jack from jack.
It's *easy* to park your lazy ass in front of a widescreen for 17 Sunday's and watch a three hour, made for TV spectacle of "bread and circuses" (look it up) replete with mind-numbing hype, incessant commercials, and inane commentary.
(I'll give you inane commentary [though not from Jack and Brick! haha], and perhaps a few commercials. Mind numbing hype, almost to the point of creating a secular religion? That's the NFL. And, by gum, it works.)
As to the latter,
sports media types have had, and continue to have, a vested interest in breathless "coverage" of the Boston Red Sox, like shithead hack Dan Shaughnessy, or the more recent army of dopes hanging on to Belichick's every (contemptuous) monosyllabic utterance.
I remember when that team was a JOKE.
But hey, football is Number One in American sports. So, gotta go with what sells.
DITTO, If ditto be necessary to site, for the sewer that is "98.5, the Sports Hub," or its now laughing stock predecessor, the once mighty, all mocking WEEI. Felger, "Mazz," Calahan, "the Big O."
Eff these effers. If they ever had souls, they sold them a long time ago.
Which is sad, really, for a guy like Tony Massarotti, who, though a baseball nerd and Red Sox maven, seemed like a knowledgable, decent guy. "Felger and Mazz" has turned him into a professional asshole, a distinction Felger, once a mere Bruins beat writer, has mined for grade A gold.
The money. The perks. The celebrity. They've got the gig. They're laughing at the fools who call into their awful, unlistenable shows.
"Cream rises to the top."
"So does scum."
Meanwhile, Zdeno Chara, Tim Thomas. Patrice Bergeron, and even Brad Marchand, colorful fellow that he is, receive little attention, never mind appreciation.
It's up to you, Bruins fans.
Give 'em all you got, because few in this town do, or ever did.
This is a hockey town. Always has been, always will be.
Don't let these revisionist media shmucks convince you otherwise.
PS We're hockey fans, which means we follow a different drum. Off the path. Not the easy path.
Fine with me.
Haha,
