It's not the fact that it's an elimination game with a trip to the Stanley Cup Final on the line that's worrying him though. No, Ference is about to play the eighth Game 7 of his NHL career. He's come to grips with how to handle the stress of this kind of situation, as have most of his Bruins teammates.
The ones he worries about are off the ice. The family members who can't control their emotions quite so easily, and the city's fans who put so much passion into pulling for this team.
"Most guys on this team have been through some Game 7s by now and some pretty high-pressure ones," Ference said while speaking to the media a little more than two hours before the Bruins' 8 p.m. faceoff with Tampa Bay. "And honestly I think we've gotten to the point where it's pretty enjoyable. As much as our families hate them, probably more than us. All of our parents complain about the blood pressure. But for us, I don't know. We really wanted to wrap it up in Game 6, but we didn't. We've moved on from that. I saw a lot of smiles on faces in there [in the Bruins' locker room]. Everybody's pretty excited about it."
The excitement was palpable outside the arena as well, where fans have already gathered in anticipation of the Bruins' chance to reach the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 1990.
"It was a beautiful day," Ference said. "I walked over today and saw everybody with their Bruins stuff on, got about 20 high-fives. So people are pumped up, and they should be. Everybody has seen so much success in this city with different sports. They want the Bruins to have success as well. So it falls on our shoulders. We know people are excited and we have a lot of guys that enjoy getting out in the community and I know a lot of people really feel a really strong support in this city."
Ference also knows what it's like to come up short in a Game 7. The Bruins had their season end in Game 7 defeats in each of the last three seasons before finally winning a Game 7 in the opening round against Montreal this spring. And Ference also lost the ultimate Game 7 to this same Lightning franchise back in the 2004 Cup Final while with Calgary.
"That was a long time ago," Ference said. "That was as big a Game 7 as it gets. … That one was brutal. It would be nice to get redemption against them."
That Game 7 may be a painful memory, but the experience of that game and the other deciding games he's played in have definitely helped Ference prepare for this latest opportunity.
"It definitely helps just calm your nerves and allow you to just embrace it and enjoy it," Ference said. "One of the messages that you tell young guys is that your desire to win has to be bigger than your fear of losing. That's so true in a Game 7. Your first time around you don't really know how to control yourself and just play the game. You build it up in your mind that it's something different than what you've been doing all year and you have to do something special. You can get yourself into trouble that way.
"After you go through a few of them, you realize it's just another hockey game," Ference added. "Obviously the stakes are higher, but you enjoy it. You have fun. You allow yourself to play the game that you know how to do. You let your mind become free and let your body do what it's best at. It definitely helps to have that experience."
And it would be all the better to experience being on the winning side of another Game 7.
