Ray Bourque - Playing Career

Playing Career

Raymond Bourque was born in Saint-Laurent, Quebec, then moved with his family to Montreal at the age of 10. Bourque was the third-round pick of the Trois-Rivières Draveurs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL). Half-way through his rookie season, coach and GM Michel Bergeron traded Bourque to Sorel for high-scoring Benoit Gosselin. After a stellar junior career with Sorel and Verdun of the QMJHL, in which he was named the league's best defenseman in 1978 and 1979, Bourque was drafted 8th overall by the Bruins, with a first-round draft choice obtained from the Los Angeles Kings in a 1977 trade for goaltender Ron Grahame, whose son John would be a future teammate of Bourque's. Boston GM Harry Sinden intended to select defenseman Keith Brown, but Brown was selected by the Chicago Blackhawks immediately prior to Boston's selection. Panicking, the Bruins settled on Bourque, allegedly against their better judgment.

Bourque would make an immediate impact in Boston during his rookie season of 1979-80, scoring a goal in his first game while facing the Winnipeg Jets. Bourque asserted himself from the start as one of the best defencemen in the league, winning both the Calder Trophy as Rookie of the Year and a First Team All-Star selection, the first time in NHL history a non-goaltender had ever achieved the distinction. His 65 points that season was a record at the time for a rookie defenceman.

In 1985, upon the retirement of Bruins' captain Terry O'Reilly to coach the club, Bourque and veteran Rick Middleton were named co-captains of the team, Middleton to wear the "C" during home games and Bourque for road games. Upon Middleton's retirement in 1988, Bourque became the team's sole captain, and retained the position for the remainder of his Bruins' tenure. In so doing, he passed Dit Clapper as the longest tenured Bruins' captain in history, as well as passing Alex Delvecchio of the Detroit Red Wings as the longest-serving team captain in NHL history, a mark since surpassed by Steve Yzerman of the Red Wings.

Bourque proved a solid force for Boston for twenty-one seasons (1979–2000), famous for combining offensive prowess at a level that few defensemen in league history had ever achieved—he was a perennial shot accuracy champion at All-Star Games—and near-unparalleled defensive excellence. Bourque won five Norris Trophies as the league's top defenceman and finished second to Mark Messier in 1990 in the closest race ever for the Hart Memorial Trophy, the league's Most Valuable Player award. The Bruins' reliance on Bourque's on-ice mastery was so total that—while Bourque was very durable throughout much of his career—the team was seen by many to flounder whenever he was out of the lineup.

During Bourque's tenure with the Bruins, the team continued what would be a North American professional record twenty-nine consecutive seasons in the playoffs, a streak that would persist through the 1996 season. It should be noted this feat is made much easier for NHL teams to accomplish because historically the NHL has a far higher percentage of its teams eligible for the playoffs than the other major North American professional sports leagues. For instance during Boston's 29 year run, from the 1979/1980 season, when the NHL expanded due to a merger with the World Hockey Association, sixteen of the twenty-one teams would make the playoffs each season until the 1992 playoffs when the league again had expanded to twenty-two teams with the addition of the San Jose Sharks. In the playoffs, Bourque led the team to the Stanley Cup Final against the Edmonton Oilers in both 1988 and 1990, where the Bruins lost in both series.

Bourque was also popular among Bruins fans because of his willingness to re-sign with Boston without any acriminous or lengthy negotiations. He passed over several opportunities to set the benchmark salary for defenceman; instead, he usually quietly and quickly agreed to terms with the Bruins, and this stance irritated the National Hockey League Players' Association which had been pushing to drive up players' wages.