Introduction-+Dear+Reader

Dear Reader, In Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken he speaks of doing things that others might not do. He thinks that taking the easy way out is not always the way to do things. Sometimes, the way that less people take turns out to be the better option. The founder of the Boston Bruins chose the road that less people took at the time. Charles Adams was a supermarket owner and easily could have continued doing that for the rest of his life. Instead, he chose to become one of the first six people to own a hockey team in the National Hockey League. The Boston Bruins were part of the original 6 teams that made up the NHL from 1924- 1942. The other teams included the Chicago Black Hawks, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Bruins were one of the tougher teams because that’s what Mr. Adams wanted from them. Bruin is the old English term for brown bear that originated in the medieval European children’s book History of Reynard the Fox. Mr. Adams wanted his franchise to identify with an untamed animal that had speed, agility, power and was cunning. His supermarket, Finast, had the colors brown and yellow so that is what was chosen as the Bruins colors. Throughout the Bruins history they have had ups and downs. They won the Stanley Cup in 1929 for the first time and then again in 1939. They won the Stanley Cup three more times in 1941, 1970 and 1972. After that they had a 39 year drought until just last year, 2011 when they won against the Vancouver Canucks. My family has 2 special connections with the 1970 winning of the Stanley Cup. My dad, Derek Michael Schultz, was born 4 days after they won the cup and was named after Derek Michael Sanderson, the Bruins center. Derek Sanderson made the pass to Bobby Orr when he scored the overtime goal against the St. Louis Blues to win the Stanley Cup after a 29 year drought. The second connection involves my //other// side of the family. The day my mom was born there was a Bruins playoff game that my grandfather wanted to go to. He told my grandmother she could mom anything she wanted and spell it any way she liked if he was allowed to leave the hospital and go to the game. My mom ended up being named Jami which is an unusual spelling for that name. Most people spell it Jaime or Jamie, but not my mom, all because my grandfather wanted to go to the Stanley Cup playoff game. This all happened on April 10, 1970, one month before the Bruins captured their fourth Stanley Cup.

While researching all of this about the Bruins I found out things I never would have known. Having this knowledge makes it so that I can have different conversations with people. I am also able to teach people more about the Bruins. The final thing I learned about was rivalries that the Bruins have with places that I didn’t know about. Studying all of this has helped me to gain a greater understanding of the Bruins organization.

--Samantha Schultz