STH Tales: The Ultimate Gentleman

BostonBruins.com - Phil Coombes has only been a Bruins Season Ticket Holder for about a decade. When the Plymouth, Mass., native first purchased a 10-game ticket package in 2009, the legendary Milt Schmidt had been retired for some 55 years.
Schmidt, however, never stopped being an ambassador for the game or the Black & Gold and is the only person to serve the team as a player, captain, coach, and general manager.
For decades after his career came to an end, he represented the Bruins with class, dignity, and respect everywhere he went - which is exactly why someone who never watched him play developed such an affinity for the man whose No. 15 hangs in the TD Garden rafters.

"He was a genuine person who cared about his fans and made you feel like you were rooting for the good guys," Coombes said of Schmidt, who passed away in 2017 at age 98. "Milt just had a way of lighting up the room. He had all the time in the world when you met him and always acted so grateful to be meeting you instead of the other way around."
Coombes first met "The Ultimate Bruin" in 2011, just a few months before the Bruins captured their first Stanley Cup since 1972. Every year on his birthday - January 4 - Schmidt would hold an autograph signing in Mansfield, Mass., and Coombes made sure to keep going back. But not just to add to his memorabilia collection.
"I kept coming back with more items for him to sign but mostly just wanted to visit," said Coombes, who sits in Section 313. "I ended up with a shrine in my living room by the time his health prevented more appearances. I had first read about him in Clark Booth's "Boston Bruins: Celebrating 75 Years" book and remembered the story of his whole line growing up together in Kitchener, Ontario. I knew he had been an MVP in his day and gone on to perform virtually every job in hockey."

Schmidt and fellow Ontario natives Woody Dumart and Bobby Bauer formed the "Kraut Line" - in a nod to their German descent - and became one of the most iconic trios in NHL history, suiting up for a combined 1,900 games, a total that was cut short by their service in World War II. The trio is one of two lines to ever finish first, second, and third in league scoring and helped the Bruins to Stanley Cup titles in 1939 and 1941. All three are enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
"I brought him a picture of the 1941 Stanley Cup team for him to sign. He stopped and told me about every single player in the photo," said Coombes. "My season ticket partner Margaret Liss and I had told him of our trip to Kitchener where we stopped to see the "Kraut Line" memorial dedicated to Milt and his inseparable linemates from his hometown.
"His eyes just lit up with another chance to tell stories of how things were with Woody Dumart and Bobby Bauer 70 years earlier."
That kind of genuine relationship with the fan base is one that has been passed on throughout Bruins history - from Schmidt to Bobby Orr to Ray Bourque and Cam Neely to Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron, and now to the team's young and emerging core.
"The younger generation of players have a packed schedule, but still find the time to care like Milt did," said Coombes. "You can see that getting passed along with players like David Pastrnak."