Cam Neely squares off against Milt Schmidt in the second round of the Boston’s Biggest Sports Legend tournament.
Cam Neely is a bad man. Bruins fans watched Neely grow up right in front of their eyes. After joining the Bruins at the age of 21, Neely became a force to be reckoned with on the Garden ice. In his first season, he scored 36 goals and made 36 assists while racking up 143 penalty minutes. Simply put, there was no stopping Cam Neely. He could beat you with his skill or could flat-out beat you up. His career numbers are excellent, but they would have been even better had it not been for Ulf Samuelsson’s hit to the knee in 1991. Neely played only 22 games the next two seasons but scored 50 goals in his first 44 games in the 1993-94 season (only Wayne Gretzky reached 50 goals in fewer games). A co-founder of the Cam Neely Foundation for Cancer Care, Neely now serves as Bruins vice president.
To the average Bruins fan, he is a faceless name, but to those whose blood runs thick with Black and Gold, Milt Schmidt is simply one of the greatest icons in franchise history. Schmidt began his 16-year career in the mid-1930s and quickly emerged as one of the game’s best two-way centers. Schmidt bagged a scoring title in 1940 playing alongside his childhood friends, Woody Dumart and Bobby Bauer, to form the famous “Kraut Line,” or the “Kitchner Kids.” Schmidt led the B’s to two Stanley Cup titles in three seasons (1939, 1941) before enlisting in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942. He didn’t return until 1946, taking four prime years away from his career. After his retirement in 1955, Schmidt coached the B’s for 11 seasons before becoming general manager. As GM, Schmidt pulled off the biggest trade in team history when he acquired Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge and Fred Standfield for Pit Martin, Gilles Marotte and Jack Norris. After this megadeal, Schmidt’s Bruins captured two Stanley Cups in 1970 and 1972. In 2000, Schmidt was named the 27th greatest hockey player in NHL history by the Hockey News.
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