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This Bruins trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the whole century of the Boston Bruins, from the grocery-store colors of 1924 and the first NHL game ever played in the United States to the record-shattering 65-win team of 2022-23. Along the way it stops at Eddie Shore and the Ace Bailey affair, the Kraut Line, Willie O'Ree's barrier-breaking debut, Bobby Orr's flight through the air, Phil Esposito's 76 goals, the Bourque number swap and the 2011 Cup in Vancouver. There is plenty of Garden lore too: the undersized ice, the 1988 blackout, Gerry Cheevers' stitched mask, the too-many-men penalty of 1979, the shoe incident at Madison Square Garden and the mascot named by a nine-year-old. Roughly a third of the questions are warm-ups any fan will get; the rest climb toward the kind of detail only a lifelong Black-and-Gold obsessive would know. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the primary sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In what year did the Bruins begin play, making them the oldest NHL franchise based in the United States?
1924
The Bruins took the ice on December 1, 1924 as the NHL's first American club; among active teams only Montreal and Toronto are older.
Q 02Which Boston grocery magnate bought the franchise that became the Bruins?
Charles Adams
Charles Adams, owner of a grocery chain, paid $15,000 for the franchise after sports promoter Thomas Duggan, who held options on three US franchises, sold him one.
Q 03The team's original brown-and-yellow uniform colors were borrowed from what?
First National Stores grocery chain
The First National Stores grocery chain, owned by the club's founder, used brown and yellow; the Bruins wore them until switching to black and gold in the mid-1930s and revived the look for the 2010 Winter Classic.
Q 04Which former player served as the Bruins' first general manager, a post he held 30 years?
Art Ross
Art Ross ran the Bruins as general manager until 1954, coaching them in several stints along the way, and later donated the Art Ross Trophy for the NHL's leading scorer.
Q 05The Bruins won the first NHL game ever played in the United States, in 1924, against which opponent?
Montreal Maroons
The Montreal Maroons, also new to the league that season, lost 2-1 at Boston Arena in a rare high point for a Bruins team that finished last at 6-24-0.
Q 06Which of these teams was NOT one of the Original Six alongside the Bruins?
Pittsburgh Penguins
The Pittsburgh Penguins arrived in the 1967 expansion; only Montreal and Toronto are true charter members, and the 'Original Six' were simply the only teams from 1942 to 1967.
Q 07How many Stanley Cups have the Bruins won?
6
6 Cups (1929, 1939, 1941, 1970, 1972 and 2011) tie the Bruins with Chicago for fourth-most, behind Montreal (24), Toronto (13) and Detroit (11).
Q 08The Bruins won their first Stanley Cup in 1929 by beating which team in a best-of-three final?
New York Rangers
The New York Rangers fell in two straight; Boston did not lose a single playoff game that spring, a feat no team repeated until Detroit's 1952 sweep.
Q 09Whose No. 3 became the first number ever retired by the Bruins, in February 1934?
Lionel Hitchman
Lionel Hitchman's No. 3 was only the second number retired in North American pro sports, eight days after Toronto retired Ace Bailey's No. 6.
Q 10Which bruising Bruins defenceman was nicknamed 'the Edmonton Express'?
Eddie Shore
Eddie Shore won the Hart Trophy four times, a record for a defenceman that even Bobby Orr's three could not match, and later owned the AHL's Springfield Indians for decades.
Q 11Which player was NOT a member of the Bruins' famed Kraut Line?
Bill Cowley
Bill Cowley centred a different line; the Kraut Line's three all grew up together in Kitchener, Ontario, and enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force together in 1942.
Q 12What did the Kraut Line achieve in the 1939-40 season that no NHL line had done before?
Finished first, second and third in league scoring
The Kraut Line finished first, second and third in league scoring in 1939-40, a feat matched only by Montreal's Punch Line in 1944-45 and Detroit's Production Line in 1949-50.
Q 13Which Kraut Line centre later coached the Bruins and, as GM, built the 1970 and 1972 champions?
Q 21How many goals did Phil Esposito score in 1970-71, a record until Wayne Gretzky broke it in 1982?
76
76 goals came on a record 550 shots; Esposito was on hand in Buffalo to hand Gretzky the puck when the record fell in February 1982.
Q 22At the December 1987 ceremony retiring Phil Esposito's No. 7, what did Ray Bourque do?
Peeled off his No. 7 jersey to reveal a No. 77
Bourque peeled off his No. 7 jersey to reveal a No. 77 underneath; he had been permitted to keep 7 indefinitely but surrendered it that night and wore 77 for the rest of his career.
Q 23In March 2000, after 21 Boston seasons, Ray Bourque was traded to which team, where he won a Cup?
Milt Schmidt
Milt Schmidt is the only person in franchise history to serve as captain, coach and general manager; his No. 15 hangs in the rafters.
Q 14Which rookie goaltender, 'Mr. Zero', won both the Calder and Vezina for the 1938-39 champion Bruins?
Frank Brimsek
Frank Brimsek earned the 'Mr. Zero' nickname with six shutouts in his first eight NHL games, posting a 1.56 goals-against average as the Bruins won the 1939 Cup.
Q 15Willie O'Ree became the NHL's first Black player on January 18, 1958, when the Bruins faced which team?
Montreal Canadiens
The Montreal Canadiens lost 3-0 at the Forum that night; O'Ree kept a secret that would have barred him: an errant puck had left him blind in his right eye two years earlier.
Q 16Bobby Orr's famous overtime goal in 1970 completed a four-game sweep of which team?
St. Louis Blues
The St. Louis Blues were swept for Boston's first Cup in 29 years; the same two teams met again in the 2019 Final with the opposite result.
Q 17Who set up Bobby Orr's Cup-winning goal in 1970 with a give-and-go pass from behind the net?
Derek Sanderson
Derek Sanderson fed Orr from behind the net; the two remained close for life, and Orr later paid for his friend's rehab.
Q 18Which photographer captured the iconic image of Bobby Orr flying through the air after his 1970 goal?
Ray Lussier
Ray Lussier of the Boston Record-American took the shot; Orr was airborne because defenceman Noel Picard tripped him just after the puck went in.
Q 19The bronze Bobby Orr statue outside TD Garden, unveiled in 2010, depicts him doing what?
Airborne just after scoring in 1970
The statue shows Orr airborne just after scoring in 1970; it was unveiled on May 10, 2010, exactly 40 years to the day after the goal it captures.
Q 20In 1967 the Bruins got Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield from which team?
Chicago Black Hawks
The Chicago Black Hawks took Pit Martin, Gilles Marotte and Jack Norris in the May 1967 deal; the following spring the Bruins made the playoffs for the first of 29 straight seasons.
Colorado Avalanche
The Colorado Avalanche won the 2001 Cup in Bourque's final game; days later he brought the Cup back to Boston for a rally of some 20,000 fans at City Hall Plaza.
Q 24Boston's 1979 first-round pick used on Ray Bourque came from trading which goaltender to the Kings?
Ron Grahame
Ron Grahame went to Los Angeles in 1978 for the pick that became eighth overall; GM Harry Sinden actually wanted Keith Brown, who went to Chicago one pick earlier, so the Bruins 'settled' for Bourque.
Q 25Which right winger, the archetypal NHL power forward, came from Vancouver for Barry Pederson in 1986?
Cam Neely
Cam Neely, 'Bam-Bam Cam', later scored 50 goals in just 44 games in 1993-94 and became the team's president in 2010.
Q 26Which team beat the Bruins in both the 1988 and 1990 Stanley Cup Finals?
Edmonton Oilers
The Edmonton Oilers swept Boston in 1988, with Wayne Gretzky taking the Conn Smythe, and won the 1990 series in five games.
Q 27What suspended Game 4 of the 1988 Final at Boston Garden with the score tied 3-3?
A power failure
A power failure plunged the Garden into darkness in the second period; the emergency generator did not start, and the game was replayed in full two days later on the road.
Q 28Which boxing promoter designed Boston Garden and built the third New York arena of the same name?
Tex Rickard
Tex Rickard, the promoter behind the New York arena it copied, opened the Boston building in 1928; it outlived its Manhattan namesake by nearly three decades.
Q 29In what year did the Bruins leave the old Boston Garden for the FleetCenter (TD Garden)?
1995
The FleetCenter opened in 1995; the Bruins' first game there, on October 7, 1995, was a 4-4 tie with the Islanders.
Q 30The eight spokes on the Bruins' 'Spoked-B' logo nod to which nickname for Boston?
The Hub
The Hub, short for 'Hub of the Universe', is the nickname; the wheel logo debuted for the club's 25th anniversary in 1948 and has been reworked several times, most notably in 2007.