Zdeno Chara is one of the biggest legends of modern NHL hockey. Standing at 6’9”, he’s the tallest player to ever skate in the NHL, but it wasn’t just his height that made him a fearsome opponent.
Chara played in the NHL between 1997 and 2022 and dressed for a whopping 1,680 games. He’s the league’s all-time leader in games played by a defenseman, and he became the second European player after Nicklas Lidstrom to win the Norris Trophy in 2009. Chara was the team captain of the Boston Bruins from 2006 to 2020, leading the team to three Stanley Cup Finals, winning in 2011.
But Chara wasn’t just a great defenseman who rarely made any mistakes on the ice. He was also great in the physical play and was a real warrior. He could occasionally fight, and when he did, he was pretty good at it.
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But Chara was also a natural-born winner who would do just about everything to help his team out in any way he could. And the Stanley Cup Finals in 2019 proved just that.
During Game 4 of the series against the St. Louis Blues, Chara took a puck to the face and immediately headed for the locker room. Chara returned to the bench in an attempt to inspire his teammates in a close game. Many would’ve called it a season suffering an injury like that, but fans were stunned to find out that Chara would return to the next game, and he played the final three games of the Final with multiple fractures to his jaw, that was being held together by wires, plates, and screws.
But if Chara had decided, he would’ve played already in the game where he suffered the injury. In the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast, he revealed what he told the team doctors in the locker room.
”I tried to get back the same game, but they’re like, ’No, no,’” Chara said.
”We stayed overnight in St. Louis, and I didn’t sleep a bit. The pain, bleeding, just kind of waiting and waiting for the morning to come. We got on the plane, and I went right from the plane to the hospital, and I had my surgery done. I woke up from the surgery and I actually felt pretty good. Don Sweeney came to see me, Cam Neely came to see me, and they were like, ’How you feeling?’ And I was like, ’I’m feeling good, I think I’m gonna try to play.’ They were just looking at me like, ’Yeah, what ever. You’re still high.’”
