Ference ready to face Bruins.
Oilers captain recovered from concussion
BOSTON — Andrew Ference long has been known as a player who punches above his weight, and the five-feet-11, 187-pound veteran has performed as advertised in his first season with the Edmonton Oilers.
Somewhat surprisingly, given his rugged style of play, Ference played in every one of the Oilers’ first 53 games this season before a concussion suffered in a 4-3 loss to the Phoenix Coyotes on Jan. 26 kept him out of the next three games — all victories — over the Nashville Predators, Vancouver Canucks and San Jose Sharks.
But the 34-year-old team captain looked ready to go on Friday, just in time to play the Bruins on his first trip back to Boston, where he played for six full seasons and part of a seventh, and where he helped win the Stanley Cup in 2011.
“For me, it has been nice,” Ference said of his hockey homecoming. “It’s obviously a place where I spent a lot of time.
“My family grew up here, so the kids came back here for this trip. They’re actually both back in their old schools today with all their old buddies. It’s pretty cool. There are obviously a lot of roots (for me) here.”
Ference played his former teammates in Edmonton on Dec. 12, a 4-2 victory for Boston, but one that eliminated the novelty of playing old friends at 11 a.m. MST Saturday.
“It’s kind of nice that we already played them in Edmonton, so it’s not too weird playing against them,” Ference said. “It’s definitely a different feeling being in the town and in the visiting room (Saturday), I’m sure (it will be) a little odd.
“But I’m excited. It’s just fun. It’s good to be back around familiar people and a familiar town that I really love.”
Ference’s friends and family members will fill up a couple of suites at the TD Garden.
“There will be some Oilers shirts and jerseys up there, as well, which is nice,” he said.
The fact that Ference’s concussion symptoms abated so swiftly is also a good thing, obviously. The compact defenceman has only missed time twice owing to concussions in a 14-year NHL career, the first coming five years ago during his time in Boston. He missed a week with that injury.
Was he worried after his head snapped back and hit the Plexiglas in that Phoenix game?
“No, because I’ve had it before where I felt much worse the next day,” Ference said. “When you wake up the next day, you kind of pause for a couple of seconds and see where you’re at.
“This time was better than the last time I went through it. I’ve been fortunate not to have some of the big ones that some of the guys have experienced.”
He added it is a “perfect example of why the protocol is there — to avoid that second hit. It seems that (as) more and more research has been done, (it shows) the second hit is the one that gets you and the one that can do the real damage.
“As long as people are honest and open about the symptoms and how they’re feeling, the doctors can put that (protocol) in place and they can help a lot of guys avoid that long-term one.”
On the play in question, Ference was off-balance, so that when he was bodychecked, his head snapped backward into the glass.
“I wasn’t able to brace for a hit,” Ference said. “It wasn’t even a big hit or anything. But it doesn’t take much when the head hits the glass, it throws you off pretty quickly.” Oil Drops: The Oilers practised Friday in the Nicholas Athletic Center at the Buckingham Browne & Nicholas School in Cambridge, Mass., across the river from Harvard University. The visit caused a stir at the private boys and girls school, as you would imagine, with students cramming a viewing lounge to watch Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle, et al, go through their paces ... Winger Matt Hendricks, who absorbed a bomb of a right hand thrown by Sharks tough guy and former Oiler Mike Brown during a fight on Wednesday night, said he is fit and ready to play on Saturday. He left the game after the fight on Wednesday night and did not return.