Two decades after he played his final game for the Senators, Hall of Famer Zdeno Chara took his final shift on Friday.
Chara was the star of “Zee’s Final Shift,” a final exhibition game to honour Chara’s career. The game featured several former Senators and a lot of ex-Boston Bruins, the team he truly made his name with.
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While he spent four good years with the Sens, it was 20 years ago this summer that he left Ottawa to sign with Boston, where he’d spend the next 14 years.
Friday’s game was held at a rink named after former Senator Pavol Demitra in Chara’s hometown of Trencin, Slovakia. The evening closed with a lovely moment as Chara removed his skates at centre ice, left them on the faceoff dot, and walked off with his two twin sons, Zack and Ben.
The act was special for two reasons.
The biggest was the nod to his father, Zdenek, a Greco-Roman wrestler who competed for Czechoslovakia in the Olympics. When a wrestler removes their shoes and leaves them in the center of the mat or ring, it’s a powerful symbol that their time in competitive wrestling is at an end.
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Also, as every hockey fan knows, Chara literally leaves the game with some very big skates to fill.
His former Bruins teammates know that better than most. They lined up in tribute with an ad hoc tunnel for the Charas to walk through as they left the ice. Even without skates on, as he walked off in his socks, he was still taller than most of his friends.
The former Senators’ content included Marian Hossa, Chris Kelly, Peter Bondra, and Radek Hamr.
Former and current Bruins taking part in the game included Patrice Bergeron, Ray Bourque, Johnny Boychuk, Andrew Ference, Jaroslav Halak, Chris Kelly, Milan Lucic, Adam McQuaid, David Pastrnak, Mark Recchi, Michael Ryder, Dennis Seidenberg, Josef Stumpel, and Marco Sturm.
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Other players involved the game were Peter Bondra, Petr Cech, Marian Gaborik, Radek Hamr, Michal Handzus, Marian Hossa, Jaromir Jagr, Tomas Kaberle, Anze Kopitar, Ziggy Palffy, Robert Reichel, Miroslav Satan, Andrej Sekera, Tomas Vanek, Jakub Voracek, and Aaron Ward.
The evening even included a hardest shot contest where Chara exactly matched his 2012 NHL All-Star record with a 108.8 mph slap shot, a super specific radar reading that would usually raise an eyebrow or two, but not on a night like this.
The building was filled with too much love to do anything but cheer.
By Steve Warne
The Hockey News
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