Winter Classic fashioned Bruins Stanley Cup run
The team building process that brought the Bruins to the Stanley Cup final began with selfies on the Great Wall of China and solidified under the omnipresent gaze of Touchdown Jesus.
The Bruins kicked off the campaign on a goodwill mission to China where they played a pair of exhibition games with Calgary Flames at the Shenzhen Universiade Center in Shenzhen and Cadillac Arena in Beijing.
But coach Bruce Cassidy identified the Bruins’ 4-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks in the Winter Classic as the turning point in the season.
The clash between two Original Six teams took place on balmy overcast New Years’ Day before 76,126 fans at Notre Dame Stadium in
South Bend, Ind.
“The was the core from Game 1 but some of that core wasn’t in China,” Cassidy said following practice Sunday at Warrior Ice Arena.
“A little bit of that was the younger guys taking charge. I think the Winter Classic was, if you want to look back, a turning point and I think that whole Peaky Blinders theme brought the guys together. I think that was (Torey) Krug’s doing if I’m not mistaken. “Then there was the game itself and it seemed to take off from there. It was an area where we really came together and that was the first time we were healthy all year with the team we thought we’d start with.”
The “Peaky Blinders theme” was a fashion statement based a popular BBC TV series about the formation of an organized crime underworld in Birmingham, England, following World War 1. The Bruins arrived in South Bend wearing suits, vests and haberdashery in the style of British gangsters from the 1920s.