Brad Marchand is the quintessential “You love him if he’s on your team; you hate him if he’s on the other team” guy. Luckily for Boston and the Bruins, they fall into the former.
The Bruins winger still crosses the line from time to time, which gets under fans’ nerves just as much as Marchand can get under the nerves of his opponent. But when it’s all said and done, New England sports fans have embraced Marchand from the beginning and have watched him grow from fourth-line grinder to an elite goal scorer on the best line in hockey.
And that embrace has been mutual.
Marchand was the most recent Boston athlete to pen a piece for The Players’ Tribune, with his “Built for Boston” column hitting the site Thursday. Marchand talked about how he came to be the player and person he is today, but most of the story centered around the bond he shares with Boston and the Bruins.
“You know, sometimes people ask me what it’s like to be hated by so many other fans,” he wrote. “It would be easy to say that it doesn’t bother me at all. But it’s complicated. Obviously, you want people to be able to separate who you are on the ice versus the real person off it.
“But you know what? All the heat I feel from fans in Vancouver and Toronto and Montreal means nothing compared to the love I feel from Boston.”
Marchand also gave props to the people who helped him in his transition to NHL All-Star. No one got more kudos than former Bruins coach Claude Julien and, of course, B’s forward Patrice Bergeron.
“Claude basically said, ‘I want you to look at Patrice and do everything exactly like he does it. You’re not going to be the best player on the ice every single night, because Patrice is going to be the best player on the ice every single night. So I want you to be the second best.’
“So I watched Patrice from day one, and I saw the ultimate professional. I don’t have many rules I live by, but one of my rules is: If you say anything bad about my brother, or about Patrice Bergeron, I’ll fight you. The guy is simply unbelievable. I’ve watched him play with broken bones, a punctured lung … a freaking punctured lung.”
Other highlights of the piece include a great Bergeron training story and an anonymous warning that the Bruins were getting a little too carried away with their 2011 Stanley Cup celebration.
