Welcome to a new feature inspired by On This Day in Pittsburgh Penguins History by fellow Rant blogger Stephanie Lewark! Here I will spotlight notable events in Boston Bruins history using various sources, including the official Black & Gold game program, which features a wealth of information about this historic team.
1901: Bonner Larose (full name Charles Bonner Larose) is born in Ottawa, Ontario. Larose, a left-winger, played just one season with the NHL and spent that one season with the Bruins. However, he only played six games and didn’t notch any points to show for it. That’s not to say he didn’t play well at all, though; he enjoyed a prolific history of play with minor-level teams mostly concentrated in the Ottawa area. He died on January 23, 1961.
1915: Murph Chamberlain (full name Erwin Groves “Murph” Chamberlain) is born in Shawville, Quebec. Chamberlain was a center who began his career with the Toronto Maple Leafs and spent time with the Montreal Canadiens before suiting up as a Bruin for one season, 1942-43. He scored nine goals and 22 assists in 45 games and added another goal and assist during six playoff games that season too. But then he went back to Montreal, where he finished out his career and won two Stanley Cups (1944 and 1946) before retiring in 1949. He coached the Sudbury Wolves for two years in the 1960s and died on May 8, 1986.
1936: Charlie Burns (full name Charles Frederick Burns) is born in Detroit, Michigan. He was a center who played a total of 749 NHL games with the Detroit Red Wings, Oakland Seals, Pittsburgh Penguins and Minnesota North Stars in addition to the Bruins. He played 262 of those games with Boston from 1959 to 1963. In 1959, he was the only American-born player in the NHL, although he was able to select Canadian citizenship upon turning 21 because his family moved to Toronto when he was a child. He also wore a big padded helmet because of a brain injury he suffered while playing junior hockey. Now he enjoys coaching–he coached the San Francisco Seals and the North Stars at different times in their existence and now coaches the youth Wonderland Wizards team in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
1993: Adam Oates notched his 100th point of the season in a 3-3 tie against Tampa Bay. This made him the first Bruin to hit that mark since Barry Pederson and Rick Middleton in 1983-84. Oates went to Washington after Boston in a 1997 trade, but after his trade, he changed his sweater number to 77 in tribute to friend and former teammate Ray Bourque.
2003: Mike Knuble (now with the Washington Capitals) scored two goals at 0:10 and 0:17 of the first period in a game against Florida, tallying the fastest two goals from the start of a game by one player. Boston won the game 6-5 in overtime.
This time last year: The Bruins had just come off a 4-2 overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings.
