BOSTON — Geoff Ward determined early on that this was one family allegiance he couldn’t get behind.
“I was not going to cheer for the Maple Leafs.”
So as a hockey-crazed kid in Manitouwadge, Ont., he instead took a shine to the rival Boston Bruins.
“I was a big Bobby Orr fan growing up, but I was also a huge Derek Sanderson fan — he played with a lot of flair and he was gritty — and I liked the way Johnny Bucyk played,” said Ward, now 57 and the interim head coach for the Calgary Flames. “Everybody in my family was Leafs fans growing up, especially my grandfather, but I was a Bruins fan. My uncle was a Canadiens fan, but I wasn’t going that way either. So I got immersed in the rivalry early, as a young guy.
“I just loved the way the Bruins played, and I liked a lot of their players. And growing up in Northern Ontario, they were on Hockey Night in Canada quite a bit. So it was always a big night in our house when the Bruins were on.”
Tuesday was another big night for Ward — a rare return to TD Garden, where kinda-sorta he lived out his childhood dream. Just not as a guy who scored … or soared.
Ward was an assistant coach in Beantown for seven seasons, highlighted by a Stanley Cup celebration in 2011. (The Original Six franchise hadn’t raised a championship banner since 1972, when Bucyk, Orr and Sanderson were some of the marquee men.)
Among the holdovers from his stint in Boston are puck-stopper Tuukka Rask, captain Zdeno Chara and forwards Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci and Brad Marchand, all key reasons that the B’s are currently atop the league-wide standings.
As Ward put it when those gents paid a visit to the Saddledome last week , “I’ll tell ya, when you win together, you’re bonded for life.”
That’s the type of thing he’s trying to build with this current cast from Calgary.
With the trade deadline now passed , with Derek Forbort and Erik Gustafsson arrived to bolster a banged-up blue-line , it wouldn’t be far-fetched to look at the final six weeks of the regular season — and whatever comes beyond that — as Ward’s audition to continue on as bench boss for the Flames.
He’s been at the helm, albeit with the ‘interim’ tag, since the Bill Peters saga/resignation in late November.
Ward has been on a bench in June, invaluable experience. He needs to get the Flames, currently in a logjam in the Pacific Division/wildcard race, to mid-April first.
“We went through so many lessons together … ” Ward said, reminiscing about what he learned during his days in Beantown. “You learn how important a strong leadership core is to a team, how important it is for a group to be really cohesive and to have common goals, how important it is to be selfless as a group. I mean, that’s one selfless team over there. They’re not worried about individual points, they’re worried about getting the wins and they’ll do anything it takes. You learn how important it is to back each other up on and off the ice.
“I think if you did a study on the Bruins, in terms of how they’ve developed their team dynamics over the last 10 years, it would be a really good study of exactly the things that have to happen in order for a team to come together and to be successful. So I use a lot of those lessons that we went through as a team in Boston every day.”
With so many cherished memories, days like Tuesday will always be special for Ward.
He’s not a Bruins fan anymore, but he still has oodles of admiration and respect for this opponent, so many friends on the other side.
“I spent seven years in Boston, and a lot of success through those seven years — never missed the playoffs, Presidents’ Trophy, Stanley Cup victory, another Stanley Cup final (in 2013), a lot of long playoff runs and just seeing that team really come together as a group with a strong leadership core … ” Ward said. “So a lot of really, really good memories. It’s a great organization. It’s a great group of guys in that room. So yeah, it is special. It’s always special to play them. And you can’t help it, once you’re so close with a group of guys for that many years, you always have it in you. The black and gold is always going to be there inside you.
“You look forward to seeing them. You look forward to competing against them. You take little pieces but when you have success together for that long of a time, it’s kind of like once a Bruin, always a Bruin. It’s just ingrained in you.”
Twitter: @WesGilbertson
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