Nilan insists Boston mobster doesn’t have his ring B2
Claim by TV station bemuses former Hab
MONTREAL — Chris Nilan says he doesn’t know where James (Whitey) Bulger got his Canadiens Stanley Cup ring, but insists it wasn’t from him.
Bulger, a mobster who terrorized South Boston in the 1970s and ’80s as head of the Winter Hill Gang, was found guilty Monday in a Boston court of gangland crimes, including 11 murders. The 83-year-old faces a sentence of life in prison, with sentencing set for Nov. 13.
In 1981, after his first full season with the Canadiens, Nilan married Karen Stanley, the daughter of Bulger’s ex-girlfriend, Teresa Stanley. That marriage ended in divorce after 25 years.
On Monday, the CBS affiliate in Boston reported that Bulger waived his right to have the jury decide whether he must forfeit $822,000 in cash, along with guns and personal possessions found in his Santa Monica hideaway when he was captured in June 2011 after 16 years on the run. The report added that in a court filing released Monday it was revealed Bulger wants to hold on to one special item: a 1986 Canadiens Stanley Cup ring. The ring still remains in government possession and there’s no guarantee Bulger will get it back.
The name of the person who gave Bulger the ring wasn’t disclosed and prosecutors might still seek to seize it as an asset in civil forfeiture proceedings. A judge will decide if all of the money seized was from the proceeds of Bulger’s crimes and must be forfeited.
The CBS report said the ring “is believed to have once belonged to former Hab Chris (Knuckles) Nilan.”
Nilan was part of the 1986 Canadiens and actually received two rings from that championship. Nilan gave his original ring to his father, and when former Canadiens general manager Serge Savard found out what Nilan had done had another one made for him.
Nilan told his story about the ring last year.
“When I got the Stanley Cup ring we were at the team golf tournament the next year and I was dying to give it to my dad for all he’d done for me,” Nilan said. “I gave it to him, and Serge Savard — who was the GM at the time — came up and said to me that he had heard I gave the ring to my dad. The following year, after I got traded (to the New York Rangers) I came back in the summertime to do my golf tournament for the Children’s Hospital and he called me at the hotel and asked, ‘Would you come in? I’d like to talk to you.’ So I came in and sat down and he had the (second) ring for me. It was a great moment … Serge, he was a teammate and a friend and my boss — who fired me — but, you know, just a good man.”
Nilan was contacted by Postmedia News by text message late Monday night and said at the time he had no comment on the Boston story. But Nilan contacted Postmedia News by phone Tuesday morning saying he wanted to clear the air about the story and his relationship with Bulger.
“I have both rings here … I have my father’s ring, because I’m getting it resized,” Nilan said. “He gave it to my son (Christopher). And I have my other ring.”
Nilan has three children: Colleen, 30, Christopher, 27, and Tara, 23.
When asked about his reaction to the reports in Boston about the Cup ring, Nilan said: “To be honest, I was kind of dumbfounded because I don’t know where he got it. All I can think is that he had one made … he commissioned someone to make it or someone else gave it to him. I gave my original ring to my dad, who in turn has since given it to my son, Christopher.
“I have both rings here … the one I gave my dad, I’m having it resized for my son with my jeweller up here … I have both rings in my possession. I never gave (Bulger) a ring.
“I married Karen … I didn’t marry (Bulger),” Nilan added. “You know, he was always good to us … he was good to my family. As far as the other stuff, I don’t condone it. He’s paying the price now for what he did … and you know, that’s life. But honestly, I had nothing to do with giving him a Stanley Cup ring.”
The Boston Globe reported that while it wasn’t clear who gave Bulger the ring, the mobster paid for Nilan’s wedding in 1981.
“Honestly, I don’t know who paid for my wedding … I can say that,” Nilan said Tuesday morning. “I never asked … I showed up. I can only assume that it was him. Teresa (Stanley, Nilan’s former mother-inlaw, who died last year) could have paid for it … so I don’t know. Again, that’s not my concern … I just showed up.”
Nilan added he had a “good relationship” with Bulger.
“He was always on the upand-up with me … he came up here to go to games at times,” said Nilan, who still holds the Canadiens’ record for most career penalty minutes (2,248) and posted 110-115-225 totals in 688 career NHL games, along with 3,043 penalty minutes. “Did I know kind of about what he did? Yeah. I mean, I wasn’t ignorant of the fact that he basically was kind of running the show down there as far as the mafia … Irish mafia … but I didn’t know the extent of things … a lot of people didn’t. But again, I didn’t concern myself with it so much … I used to see him at Christmas all the time at my mother-in-law’s house and he came up here to visit the kids with my motherin-law quite a few times and would go to games.”
Nilan’s reaction to Monday’s verdict at U.S. District Court in Boston?
“Well, it’s basically … it is what it is,” the 55-year-old Nilan said.
“You know … it’s payback time,” he added. “The government finally got him … the whole case was a mess to begin with, the government involvement. Again, it’s time to pay.”