The Bruins are one of the "Original Six" NHL teams, along with the Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Blackhawks, Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, and Toronto Maple Leafs.

[5] The previous year in 1923, sports promoter Thomas Duggan received options on three NHL franchises for the United States, and sold one to Boston grocery magnate Charles Adams.

[16] The Stanley Cup-winning game for the Senators would see Bruins' Billy Coutu attack the referee, earning him a ban from the NHL for life, the only in league history.

[18] Standout players on the first championship team included Shore, Harry Oliver, Dit Clapper, Dutch Gainor and goaltender Tiny Thompson.

Brimsek had an award-winning season, capturing the Vezina and Calder Trophies,[20] becoming the first rookie named to the NHL first All-Star team, and earning the nickname "Mr.

[25] Although there were some instances of success (such as making the Stanley Cup Finals in 1953, 1957, and 1958, only to lose to the Montreal Canadiens each time), the Bruins mustered only four winning seasons between 1947 and 1967.

The "Uke Line"—named for the Ukrainian heritage of Johnny Bucyk, Vic Stasiuk, and Bronco Horvath – came to Boston in 1957 and enjoyed four productive offensive seasons, heralding, along with scoring stalwarts Don McKenney and Fleming Mackell, the successful era of the late 1950s.

The Bruins then obtained forwards Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield from Chicago in a deal celebrated as one of the most one-sided in hockey history.

With other stars like forwards Bucyk, John McKenzie, Derek Sanderson, and Hodge, defenders like Dallas Smith and goaltender Gerry Cheevers, the "Big Bad Bruins" became one of the league's top teams from the late 1960s into the 1980s.

Bruins players Gerry Cheevers, Derek Sanderson, Johnny McKenzie and Ted Green left to join the World Hockey Association (WHA).

The Bruins stocked themselves with enforcers and grinders, and remained competitive under Cherry's reign, the so-called "Lunch Pail A.C"., behind players such as Gregg Sheppard, Terry O'Reilly, Stan Jonathan and Peter McNab.

The Bruins placed second in the Adams Division, and lost to the Chicago Black Hawks in the first round of the 1975 playoffs, losing a best-of-three series, two games to one.

Continuing with Sinden's rebuilding of the team, the Bruins traded Esposito and Carol Vadnais for Brad Park, Jean Ratelle and Joe Zanussi to the Rangers.

The story repeated itself in 1978—with a balanced attack that saw Boston have 11 players with 20+ goal seasons, still the NHL record—as the Bruins made the Cup Finals once more, but lost in six games to Montreal.

The 1979–80 season saw a new head coach Fred Creighton, and also included a trade of goaltender Ron Grahame to the Los Angeles Kings for a first-round pick which was used to select Ray Bourque, one of the greatest defensemen of all-time and the face of the Bruins for over two decades.

[27] The Bruins made the playoffs every year through the 1980s behind stars such as Park, Bourque and Rick Middleton, and had the league's best record in 1982–83 behind a Vezina Trophy-winning season from ex-Flyers goaltender Pete Peeters, with 110 points, but fell short of making the Stanley Cup Finals.

The following season, 2001–02, the Bruins won their first Northeast Division title since 1993 with a core built around Joe Thornton, Sergei Samsonov, Brian Rolston, Bill Guerin, Mike Knuble and Glen Murray.

Although Bruins center Patrice Bergeron was injured with a concussion most of the season, youngsters Milan Lucic, David Krejci and Vladimir Sobotka showed promise in the playoffs.

Following their Stanley Cup win, the Bruins lost Mark Recchi to retirement and Michael Ryder and Tomas Kaberle to free agency.

The Bruins went on to finish second in the Eastern Conference with 102 points, winning the Northeast Division title, but losing to the Washington Capitals in the first round of the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs in seven games.

The Bruins also acquired veterans Rick Nash, Nick Holden, Brian Gionta, and Tommy Wingels through trades or through free-agent signings.

Then for the 2016 Winter Classic, the Bruins wore a black and gold variation of the original brown uniforms, a design they carried over the following season as an alternate.

[70] His company owns TD Garden and he is partners with John Henry, owner of Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox, in the New England Sports Network (NESN).

[72] Sports Illustrated has suggested longtime star defenseman Ray Bourque, who "often drawn the ire of the NHLPA for his willingness to re-sign with Boston with minimal negotiations over the years" instead of setting the "watermark for defenseman salaries", requested and received a trade in 2000 since the team's "hardline and spendthrift ways" meant he would have to make the move to get his elusive Stanley Cup (Bourque holds the record for most games played before winning the Cup).

[73] Prior to the NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement signed in 2005, fans felt team management was not willing to spend to win the Stanley Cup.

The current administrators in the Bruins front office are: The Bruins previously trained and practiced at the Bright-Landry Hockey Center in Allston, Massachusetts (built in 1956), then moved to the Ristuccia Ice Arena[78] in Wilmington, Massachusetts, itself completed in 1986, before the September 2016 completion of Warrior Ice Arena in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston, where they are currently training.

[79] For a sizable amount of the team's more recent TV and online ads, a different anthropomorphic ursine character simply known as "The Bear" appears in official Bruins video advertising.

On ice, "Paree", a 1920s hit tune written by Leo Robin and Jose Padilla, has been played as an organ instrumental for decades, typically as the players entered the arena just before the start of each period and, for many years, after each Bruins' goal.

[82] In 1998, the John Kiley rendition of "Paree" was dropped as a goal song; "Kernkraft 400 (Sport Chant Stadium Remix)" by Zombie Nation is the current one.

There is evidence from contemporary newspaper accounts and photographs that Bruins manager Art Ross appointed captains on an annual basis in the 1930s and 1940s, and generally for a single season only.