Trencin, Slovak Republic (July 2011) – Not far from the forest he played in as a boy and where he continues to train in the off-seasons, Bruins captain Zdeno Chara thanked his family, his friends and his hockey supporters for helping him realize the dream of a Stanley Cup championship. The tallest man in National Hockey League history stood on the stage of an outdoor amphitheater, high on a fortified hill, inside the walls of ancient and imposing Trencin Castle, in front of 200 guests from his native country and a handful from North America.

During his address Chara singled out and introduced just one man: John Gajdosik. Nineteen years earlier, while sitting on the same hillside on one of the same wooden theatre benches where friends and family sat now, Gajdosik and teenager Zdeno Chara met to talk about his hockey career, or lack thereof. Gajdosik, then an employee at this historical site and also a part-time European scout for the New York Rangers, told the 15-year-old he would do everything within his power to help him reach his goals.

“Others said I should quit, go on to wrestle like my father, or play basketball,” Chara remembers. “I wanted to play hockey, but I couldn’t even get on a junior team in Trencin, forget about OHL or Western League. I kept working hard and John kept looking.”
“Hard” is a dramatic understatement. Chara began a legendary local training regimen that continues to expand.

"When we're done with what he calls his Russian cycle (of weight lifting) and I'm absolutely done, finished, no mas,” says Trencin native and former ECHLer Vladi Nemic, “he's ready to start all over again."

With his size, work ethic and potential skating ability, and with the help of Gajdosik, Chara eventually played some junior hockey in Slovakia in 1994, and after being drafted as a “project” by the Islanders in the 3rd round in 1996, Chara landed in Prince George, British Columbia as a 19-year-old in the Western League, where his North American hockey career began to take shape.

“There’s no doubt this guy was a project,” says Bruins coach Claude Julien, “but his work ethic and his determination is what made him a great player. He’s had to have some good coaching along the way, but he’s also a guy you have to pull back, as opposed to having to push. He wanted to prove people wrong. Tim Thomas is one of those stories, and to a certain extent Zdeno is one of those too, because no one thought he should have been playing hockey.”

Symbolic of their dedication, and as a thank you, Chara placed the Stanley Cup between himself and Gajdosik, on the very same bench where they had met two decades prior, for a championship photograph he will cherish as much as any.
That’s how the Captain of the Boston Bruins began his Stanley Cup party, one that included dancing, a buffet and an open bar.

The celebration scene was a bit surreal on many levels. One, because the Bruins aren’t used to winning Stanley Cups, two, their Captain is of course Slovakian, and three, Chara isn’t exactly known for hanging around folks while they’re throwing back the cold frothies. “Big-Z” practically never drinks, allowing himself on this very rare occasion two sips from a vodka concoction before setting it aside.

This is not to say Chara hasn’t been whooping it up in his own way. Equally as important as the team title, if not more so for “Zee”, is the internal satisfaction of reaching a monumental personal goal. For a reason unbeknownst to most, there’s a little party going on inside the big man.

“I’m just happy that in my time, my first contract, that was my fifth year, we were able to accomplish it,” Chara points out. “That was my goal. It may sound funny now, somebody might think I’m making it up, but when we talked, Peter (GM Chiarelli) and Charlie (owner Jacobs) and those guys, I told them that ‘I want to get it done in five years’. Obviously it’s a process and we had some bumps to overcome those first three years. But eventually we find a way and the goal is accomplished. We did it in five years and now we can put in new goals and are excited to do it again.”

Chara doesn’t want to wait until the last year of his new deal to win another title; that would mean waiting seven years. In Prague, on the same day as the team’s season opener in October 2010, the Bruins announced the contract extension with a no-movement clause worth 6.5 million dollars a season. Chara is wrapped up until age 41.

“It gave me the chance, the opportunity, to have that piece of mind,” Chara says. “Not to have to, I don’t want to say worry; I would work the same if it were a one year deal. But it’s just much more comfortable for my family and for myself when you know, OK, you don’t have to deal with a contract.”

So is it alright, especially considering the party in a castle, to call Chara’s career thus far a fairy tale? A dream come true? Maybe, but for the largest man to ever play in the NHL, that terminology doesn’t seem to compute, unless the fairy tale begins: “Once upon a time there was an ogre …”

Let’s face it, when Chara showed up in Prince George he was, to use the term kindly, a bit of a freak. 6-foot-9?! Come on, who is this guy? He couldn’t skate, plus he sounded, and sometimes still does, like he’d be the perfect Eastern European bad-guy boxer from “Rocky Part 9”.

“I’m going to kick your ass.”

And he did. He was challenged constantly by the other rough-and-tumblers around junior hockey’s toughest circuit. In his lone WHL year, he learned quickly, he beat people up, and tallied 120 penalty minutes in 49 games, with another 45 in fifteen playoff games.
For two seasons Chara then split time between the NHL and the American Hockey League, before reaching the big show for good with the Islanders in 1999-2000.

“When I played against Zee he was Bambi (skating-wise) on ice,” states Bruins assistant general manager Don Sweeney, “but he just absolutely went to work. He worked on his skating, he worked on fitness, and he just buckled down. He was determined to make it and be the best.”

On June 23rd, 2001, as part of a series of disastrous hockey decisions by the club, the Isles sent Chara, Bill Muckalt, and a draft pick that turned out to be Jason Spezza, to Ottawa for Alexei Yashin. During his four seasons there, the Senators won a President’s Trophy with the best regular season record in 2003 and advanced to the Eastern Conference final. Then in 2006, in what some have called “the greatest NHL free agent signing ever”, Chara moved on to the Bruins and was quickly named Captain. Being thrust into the primary leadership role was as big a challenge as he had ever faced.

“I think everything takes a little time,” Chara states. “Coming to a new team, a new organization, new coach and GM, everything was so new, I think it was tough on everyone not just on me. We all tried to adjust and find a way to be the best, but obviously it took a little time for all the changes to kick in.”

“What I thought, seeing what he did, coming to Boston and being named captain and everything else,” explains Julien, “I think he took way too much on his shoulders and tried to do everything. I saw the guy running around trying to do everybody’s job in the defensive zone and stuff like that. So on the hockey side I thought settling down a little bit would help his game. Also, as captain, I think he’s grown so much, realizing that he has to use people around him to help him do that job. It’s not a one man job. Obviously (Patrice) Bergeron has become a real, real good leader and more vocal over the years, and (Mark) Recchi who is obviously an experienced guy, those two guys really helped take a lot of the burden that he had been carrying on his shoulders by himself.”

“You have to talk things over; it’s something you have to share,” Chara agrees. “All leadership, you can’t be totally relying on one or two guys. Obviously that would get sick and old pretty quickly in a long ten month season. I was glad that somebody else had some things to say and I could focus on my game.”

Chara was as diligent with this mental side of the game, with the communication, leadership, and team maintenance elements, as he was with his physical preparation. Ironically, legendary Islanders coach Al Arbour, a neighbor of Chara’s near his part time home in Florida, played a big part.

“Some of the people I met with helped a lot, like Al Arbour, I’ve met with him out on Longboat (Key)” Chara explains. “Our team psychologists, Frank Lodato, Max Offenberger, those guys are really good with people. I’d also have meetings with some other athletes, other sports. Reading books too. It doesn’t have to be sports, when you’re reading about life surviving stories, or any kind of story that you can learn from. You imagine yourself in those situations and it’s pretty interesting.”

“I think it’s the emergence of a great player becoming more of a well rounded leader and having more of a well rounded game,” points out Sweeney, a former NHL defenseman for 16 years. “I think that all teams that win, their best players become that. I think Z kind of epitomizes that. I think he takes very good care of his own body and game, but I think he’s learned to help others, and that’s how the best players help teams win.”

cut in half simply because of story's length. part 2 up shortly

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