Jim Montgomery has already ingratiated himself well with Boston fans due to the Bruins currently having the best record in the NHL at 28-4-3.
Montgomery has pushed all the right buttons in his first season at the helm in Boston and has said all the right things off the ice, too.
That continued Friday when Montgomery revealed his favorite baseball teams growing up as a kid in Montreal ahead of the Bruins facing the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday at Fenway Park in the 2023 Winter Classic.
And there’s no doubt Boston Red Sox fans will love Montgomery’s answer.
“I said this before, (Montreal) Expos were my National (League) team, Red Sox were my American League team,” Montgomery told reporters, per team-provided video. “The ’78 team was the team where I really started watching baseball a lot. And I hate Bucky Dent.”
Anybody who hates Dent usually ends up in the good graces of Red Sox fans. Dent lives in infamy in Boston after the former New York Yankees infielder hit a pivotal three-run home run over the Green Monster with two outs in the seventh inning of the 1978 American League East tiebreaker game.
New York went on to win, 5-4, to advance to the playoffs and end the season for the Red Sox while sending their fans, Montgomery included, into misery with another gut-wrenching loss.
The 53-year-old Montgomery, who played his college hockey at the University of Maine, will be back at the scene of that crime with the Bruins playing in their fourth Winter Classic since 2010.
Hopefully, Montgomery doesn’t have flashbacks to the Dent home run when he makes his way across the diamond at Fenway and to his position behind the bench at the makeshift rink.
But before Montgomery and the Bruins participate in the NHL’s marquee regular-season event, they first will host the Buffalo Sabres at TD Garden on Saturday. Puck drop is scheduled for 1 p.m. ET, and you can watch the game, plus an hour of pregame coverage on NESN.
