Kevin Bieksa responded during Saturday’s Hockey Night in Canada broadcast to a story that Zdeno Chara put out there when it came to some less-than sportsmanlike behavior he contended came out of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final Canucks team. During a podcast interview, Chara claimed members of that Boston Bruins team who won the Stanley Cup that season saw members of the Canucks team practicing handing off an imaginary Stanley Cup and acting like they’d won it before actually doing so. It was a move he said fueled the Bruins to take it to Vancouver that season.
Bieksa was asked for comment and he said, “It’s about the dumbest thing we’ve ever heard,” and that it was 100% untrue. He then questioned the character of Chara for putting that out there when it didn’t happen and he had no evidence of it ever happening. Saying the former Bruins’ defenseman has already walked back some of his comments from “we saw” to “we heard” to “we believe we heard”, Bieksa was disappointed that Chara wouldn’t do a better job of making sure he had the facts before publicly questioning the leadership core and character of the players on that Canucks’ team.
Bieksa said it was a shot at guys like Henrik and Daniel Sedin, Roberto Luongo, Dan Hamhuis, Manny Malhotra, and himself. That they would even let that happen, let alone participate in it goes to show how little Chara knows about those men.
Bieksa said ” I don’t think I have to spend a lot of time discrediting this didn’t happen. Logistically it’s impossible.” He noted that there were cameras everywhere and at every practice. Someone would have reported the story if the Canucks players were doing something so ridiculous. Certainly, a reporter would have had a field day with that kind of action from a team that hadn’t actually won anything. The eyes of the hockey world were on that series, someone would have picked up that story.
Bieksa said he would have expected more and maybe a little higher level of mutual respect that he wouldn’t repeat a story like that without fact-checking or having seen it firsthand.
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At this point, the story isn’t an issue, but it goes to show what kind of motivators can get a team riled up. It sounds a lot like Chara was fed a story that he and the rest of the Bruins team fell for and used as fuel to go out a play better. Did the coach say something? Did another player try to fire up his teammates and it turned into a legendary locker room rallying cry? These sorts of things happen in sports all the time, but it might have been wiser for Chara to make sure it was true before publicly bashing a team that may not have done what they were accused of.
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