VANCOUVER — For a few weeks at least, Andrew Ference possessed the most famous finger in the NHL playoffs.
He earned that dubious distinction with his well-chronicled "unintentional bird" directed at Montreal fans after scoring a goal against the Canadiens in Game 4 of the opening round at the Bell Centre.
But teammate Patrice Bergeron now has the most famous digit in the league, after getting his right index finger chomped on by Vancouver forward Alexandre Burrows during a scrum at the end of the first period of Wednesday's Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final.
"Which finger was it? Was it his pointer?" Ference asked. "Too bad. That would have been great if he could have shown you the other one."
When told that Bergeron now probably had the more famous finger, Ference wasn't too upset.
"He surpasses me because it's the Finals, huh? That's good," Ference said. "That's fine. I'll gladly give that title to him."
Ference had a bigger issue with why Burrow would want to bite on anyone's finger, especially when it's inside a hockey glove.
"It can't taste good," Ference said. "I've smelled my gloves."
Burrows was not fined or suspended for the incident, but Ference didn't have too much of a problem with that.
"It is what it is," said Ference, who was fined $2,500 for his gesture in Montreal. "There's incidents that happen and if there's not great video on it and you can't really tell, you can't punish somebody if it's not conclusive. That's fine. You trust the NHL to do it. It doesn't change the fact that he did it or not. That's not the issue. The issue is whether it's conclusive enough to make a player miss the Finals. I know if I'm in those shoes I want the evidence to be pretty conclusive to miss one of the most important games of your life."
Just because the NHL chose not to take action doesn't mean the incident wasn't a topic of conversation in the Bruins' room.
"Bergy's finger was bleeding, of course you're going to talk about it," Ference said. "It doesn't happen every day. It's a crazy game and emotions get high."
Ference had plenty to say about the incident Thursday at the club's media availability at the University of British Columbia, but he doesn't plan to talk about it much on the ice in Game 2 on Saturday. He'll leave that to the experts, like master chirper Brad Marchand.
"I'm sure Marshy's probably thinking of some things [to say]," Ference said. "I don't talk much, so I'm not going to try to be too witty and figure out what they'll say. I'll leave that up to the guys who are good with their mouths."
Burrows might qualify for that, though not in a way anyone expected.
