Chara leaves legacy of winning, leadership after retiring from NHL

BOSTON -- The first time Andrew Ference saw
Zdeno Chara
, he wasn't exactly wowed. There, on the other side of the ice was a gangly, awkward giant, a kid who had just crossed an ocean to play for Prince George of the Western Hockey League, who at 19 years old had yet to figure out who or what he could be in the sport of hockey.

Ference, then 17 and a defenseman for Portland, got a glimpse of Chara and, mostly, shrugged.
"There was legitimately no shot -- it's actually the greatest compliment to him -- but he's not somebody you would have looked at and been like, oh, NHLer for sure," said Ference, who 14 years later would wheel the Stanley Cup through the streets of Boston with Chara after they helped the Boston Bruins
win the 2011 Cup championship
.
"He had the size. But he wasn't a great skater. He wasn't super skilled. He was tough … but there was nothing outstanding where you would have been like, 'Oh my god, this guy's a future Hall of Famer.'"
RELATED: [Chara retires from NHL, will sign one-day contract with Bruins | Career timeline]
And yet, with the announcement Tuesday that Chara would retire after a 24-season NHL career, one that spanned four decades and multiple eras, that is exactly what the defenseman has fashioned himself into: a future Hall of Famer.
"What else does he need in his career?" former teammate David Backes said. "Most games played might be the only thing he's got left. … He's got the most games played by a defenseman. [He's] a guy that is, Mount Rushmore of the defensemen ever to play in the League."
During that storied career, the 6-foot-9, 250-pound Chara -- the tallest player ever in the NHL -- played 1,680 games, the most among all defensemen and the seventh-most of any player all-time. He had 680 points (209 goals, 471 assists) and won the 2008-09 Norris Trophy as the best defenseman in the NHL (and was a six-time Norris finalist). He played in the NHL All-Star Game six times, and won the 2012 NHL Hardest Shot competition with a record 108.8 miles per hour. He played in 200 Stanley Cup Playoff games and averaged 23:44 on ice in the regular season.
He was a force.
But he didn't start there.
It was the summer after Chara's first season in North America when Ference really got the full picture of the player and person, training together in Edmonton during the offseason. He would see the work Chara put in in the gym, the effort, the dedication, and the idea of what Chara could be started to emerge.
"That's when he really revealed his work ethic, what he was actually doing to build himself up and to develop himself," said Ference, who played with Chara for seven seasons in Boston. "So for me, his legacy is probably just a self-made superstar. Because he wasn't some phenom when he was young, just dominant. He wasn't surrounded by the greatest coaches, people helping him. He was probably more surrounded by people that wanted him to fight more and be an enforcer."
He turned himself into so much more.
During his quarter-century career, Chara would play for four teams, but none as long and as well as for the Bruins. He was the Bruins captain for 14 seasons and led them to the Stanley Cup Final three times (2011, 2013, 2019), winning the Cup in an epic seven-game series against the Vancouver Canucks in 2011.

"It's really hard to put into words what he means to the organization, the city, a lot of guys' careers," St. Louis Blues defenseman Torey Krug, who played with Chara for nine seasons in Boston, said in 2020. "He was the gold standard, as a professional and as a Boston Bruin. And if you want to be a Bruin, you had to measure up to the standard that he set. He drives a lot of guys in the fire with him."
When Chara signed with the Bruins on July 1, 2006, after five seasons with the New York Islanders and four with the Ottawa Senators, he released a statement. He said he wanted to "lead this team by setting a good example with my work ethic, drive, dedication and discipline."
It was an understatement.
"As far as his legacy to the Boston Bruins, he goes down as one of the best and greatest," said Bruins general manager Don Sweeney, who knows a little something about great Bruins defensemen, having played with Hockey Hall of Fame member Ray Bourque for 12 seasons. "Really ultimately changed the culture of where the group was when he came on board and won a Stanley Cup and was a champion in this city both on and off the ice and an iconic player.
"Obviously to have the most games played ever as a defenseman in the National Hockey League, that one might not be broken. As a person, just a really special individual on and off the ice."
He would alter the organization and the ethos, setting up a new era in Boston hockey in the process, alongside Patrice Bergeron, who succeeded Chara as captain. It was a signing that has reverberations even now, two years after he last put on a black-and-gold sweater, and which seems destined to endure into the future.
"That's why the Bruins have been such a competitive organization for so long, is that you have these guys who instilled so many fantastic habits into these young players who have come in," said former Bruins forward Rich Peverley, speaking of Chara and Bergeron. "The leadership that they both brought is world class."
Because in considering Chara's career, it goes far beyond the numbers.

Chara grew up in Communist-era Czechoslovakia, born under Soviet rule, the son of Zdenek, an Olympic Greco-Roman wrestler. He speaks at least seven languages, was issued his Massachusetts real estate license in 2015 after a torn knee ligament left him with some free time and won the Bruins' pull-up contest at 40 years old in 2017. He is an avid cyclist and cycling fan with a weakness for banana bread, a person who likely would have been equally at home as a corporate CEO as he was as an NHL captain.
He became Bruins captain before ever playing a game in Boston, his signing part of the reason that Marc Savard joined the team at the same time. It was an indication that the Bruins were ready for a new era eight months after Joe Thornton was traded to the San Jose Sharks, in a franchise-defining move. Less than five years later, the Bruins would hoist the Cup, making Chara the second European-born captain to win it (Nicklas Lidstrom, 2008 with the Detroit Red Wings).
Chara would help form the Bruins in his image, a relentless, snarling bunch that had no excuses for not working as hard as their captain.
"He's the ultimate measuring stick for the Boston Bruins, and why he's pushed so many guys around him to greatness as well," Krug said. "People are always trying to outwork Zdeno, and it doesn't happen. When people are trying to, that means they're reaching their potential and that's what forces greatness on other people."

They couldn't slack. They couldn't take a day off. They didn't really have a choice.
"You had to," said forward Shawn Thornton, who played with Chara for seven seasons and is now chief revenue officer of the Florida Panthers, in 2020. "You had to be able to look the big man in the eyes."
He refused to let first-year Bruins be called rookies and worked harder than just about anyone, even when he was twice the age of some of his teammates. He tutored them, a succession of young defensemen, from Dougie Hamilton to Brandon Carlo to
Charlie McAvoy
.
"He's a real teacher at heart," Ference said.
McAvoy, born in 1997 to Chara's 1977, was paired with Chara for his first three NHL seasons, and credits a significant amount of his development to him.
"I think for me, as a young guy, it was just realizing how hard you need to push yourself every single day," McAvoy said when Chara left the Bruins in 2020. "There's just so many things, it's hard. But I know that everything I learned from him, I can use it. Kind of pay it forward, and hopefully help the young guys move along, a lot like he did to me."
There's that impact, lingering.
And they all believe that there is yet more to come for Chara. More celebration, more recognition. For what he did for the Bruins and what he did for them and the impact he had on hockey itself. Even if it's something Ference couldn't have imagined in those first glimpses of Chara all those years ago.
As Peverley said, "He's first Hall of Fame ballot in my opinion."
NHL.com staff writer Tracey Myers and NHL.com independent correspondent Jessi Pierce contributed to this story