He’s the tallest player with the hardest shot, and now captains a team with some of the most demanding fans in the NHL. EOGHAN MORRISSEY examines the career thus far of Zdeno Chara, the modest Slovak who looks down on everyone else.
Standing 6' 7" tall, Zdeno Chara is not only the tallest player in the NHL, he is the tallest player to ever take to the ice in the league’s history. As well as that physical honour, the Slovakian is now the captain of the Boston Bruins, taking over from the iconic Joe Thornton and becoming only the third Slovak to skipper an NHL side.
But that’s not all – he also holds the record for the hardest shot in the NHL. At last month’s All-Star game he won the Hardest Shot Competition with a puck recorded at 100.4 mph (161.6 km/h). In addition, Chara has represented Slovakia in five World Championships; he missed out when they won in 2002, but played for his country in the 2006 Winer Olympics.
Like many great NHL players, his greatness could lie in his genes – his father, Zdenek, was a member of the Czechoslovakian 1976 Olympic wrestling team who continued competing on the mat till he was 47 years old. Despite his size, Zdeno is not renowned as one of the tough guys in the league, although he is well able to take care of himself. It’s a necessary attribute because the tough guys tend to come looking for him.
“The tough guys came after me in junior hockey [because of my height] and they thought maybe I do not know how to fight, but I beat up almost everybody,” he said in an interview with the Hockey News. “My father was a wrestler in the Olympics. He showed me how to fight. Fighting is just one part of the game, but if I have to, I will defend myself and stick up for my teammates.”
Chara grew up in Trencin, Slovakia, and began playing hockey when he was six years of age. Aged 19, he moved to North America to familiarise himself with the American game (the NHL rink is smaller than those used in Europe). Prince George in northern British Columbia, Canada, was his destination to prove he had what it took to be drafted by an NHL team. The New York Islanders liked what they saw, and he was selected 56th overall in the 1996 draft.
He made his NHL debut against the Detroit Red Wings on November 19, 1997. It was an inauspicious start to a season in which he played just 25 games, with the highlight being 15 minutes in the penalty box against the New York Rangers in April 1998. The following year he played 59 times as he slowly acclimatised to the physical nature of the NHL. Traded to the Ottawa Senators in 2001, it was in Canada’s capital that Chara finally ignited on the ice.
Elected to the All-Star game in 2003, he has made the team every year since and became one of the league’s foremost defencemen, finishing as runner- up to Scott Niedermayer for the James Norris Memorial Trophy (awarded to the best defenceman of the season).
Following the NHL lockout, when he played for Farjestads in the Swedish Elitserien, he posted the best figures of his career when the league resumed in 2005 with 16 goals, 43 points and 212 shots on goal. In July of last year he signed a five-year, $37.5m (28.5m euro) contract with the Boston Bruins. To top it off, before the season began he was named as the 18th captain in the club’s 82-year history.
“Zdeno’s leadership qualities have been apparent from the time he joined players for their informal skates prior to training camp,” said the Bruins’ general manager Peter Chiarelli. “He leads by example, both on and off of the ice, and he has earned the respect of everyone in our dressing room.
“He recognises the leadership abilities of his two assistant captains as well as other players, and he also realises that every player has strengths that they bring to our team and that bringing those strengths together is crucial to our success.” This success will be a challenge for the man they call ‘The Big Z’. Fuelled by an expectant public, the Boston Bruins are one of the great underachievers of the NHL.
One of the original six founding members of the league, they last won the Stanley Cup in 1972, continually flopping since then in the play-offs. But Chara is a big, hard man – and if he can’t do it, nobody can.
