You should absolutely be rooting for Brad Marchand to win another Stanley Cup, even in a Panthers sweater

Boston Globe

2 days ago

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Do the right thing. Hold your nose, swallow your pride, holster your hate, and pull for the Panthers. It's the magnanimous and mature route. For all he did here, our Lil' Ball of Hate deserves to cart the Cup around the ice one more time.
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Renounce laundry logic and cheer on the guy who remains a Bruin to the core, no matter what sweater he's donning. That's what yours truly plans to do.
Boston fans aren't always the best at resisting provincial interests and instincts. I covered the games when Adam Vinatieri, whose foot delivered two Super Bowls for the Patriots, and Johnny Damon, who slugged two home runs in the Red Sox cathartic Game 7 victory over the Yankees in 2004, got booed upon returning with rivals.
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Johnny Damon homered twice in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, but was likened to Judas when he returned to Fenway Park as a member of the Yankees two years later.
Jim Davis/Globe Staff
Marchand looks like he's having the time of his hockey life. It's like breaking up with your ex and then seeing on Instagram that they're dating a billionaire. You wish them well, but not
that
well.
It's hard to watch the last link to the Bruins 2011 Stanley Cup chasing hockey's Holy Grail with a rival. But it means so much to him at this stage of his career, an on-ice oeuvre that should land his No. 63 in the TD Garden rafters.
'I may never get back this late in the playoffs ever again in my career,' the 37-year-old said. 'To be one of the last teams standing and being part of a great group of guys, these are memories that I want to remember and enjoy.'
The rascally Marchand has endeared himself to the players he spent the previous two postseasons battling. The Panthers are 8-2 this postseason when Marchand records a point.
Instantly, Marchand fit in with the NHL's Rat Pack. Plastic rats are to the Panthers and their fans as octopi are to the Red Wings. It's a tradition that dates back 30 years to the 1995-96 Panthers, who reached the Stanley Cup Final.
Now,
The tradition moves on to the SCF...
Panthers FIRING rats at Brad Marchand 😅🐀
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce)
We're a long way from
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Pursuing Lord Stanley's cherished chalice makes for strange bedfellows.
The recipe for sports rooting interests is loyalty, emotion, geography, and common objectives. But there are reasons to root for Marchand, the little guy who came up big for the Black and Gold; Marchand's five-goal heroics in the 2011 Stanley Cup Final endeared him to Hub hockey fans for a lifetime.
Everybody's favorite agitator left his mark — with his wit, his hockey hijinks, and his production. Marchand ranks in the Bruins top five all-time in regular-season games (fourth, 1,090), goals (fourth, 422), and points (fifth, 976).
The inimitable winger couldn't have been classier about his departure.
Even
in absentia
, he helped the Bruins score,
Undoubtedly, some will associate cheering for Marchand with echoes of one of the low points in 21st-century Boston sports — the celebration at City Hall Plaza for Bruins legend Ray Bourque after he won the Cup with the Avalanche in 2001. It was a desperate ploy by a city starved to attach itself to any sort of sports success, mere months before Tom Brady ushered in the titletown ethos.
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Having not celebrated a title-winning team since the Celtics in 1986, more than 10,000 people showed up at City Hall Plaza on June 13, 2001, to congratulate Ray Bourque for winning the Stanley Cup with the Avalanche.
JIM BOURG/REUTERS
There also could be those withholding support because they hold it against Marchand that he couldn't deliver a second Cup here. Mad Brad was a big part of the Bruins falling apart on home ice in a gut-punch Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final.
They never recovered — both in that game and as a franchise.
This will be Marchand's fourth kick at the Cup. He has played in 20 Stanley Cup Final contests entering Game 1 Wednesday, notching seven goals and five assists.
With a career 60-92—152 postseason line, Marchand is fourth among active players in playoff points, trailing Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Nikita Kucherov — heady company for an undersized pest from Nova Scotia. All of them have won multiple Cups.
Here's hoping Marchand joins them on that list too, even if watching him do it with Florida hurts like a slapshot off the elbow.
Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at