Boston Bruins Fan Fest Is A Rousing Success

By Andrew Thompson                                                               Twitter: @godwentwhoops

The Boston Bruins organization tried a new approach in fan outreach this last week. Over the last several days, the Black and Gold have bounced across all six New England states as part of their 2017 Fan Fest.  With the season just over a month away, the B’s reached out to the fans to get them energized for the upcoming 2017-18 season.

The Boston Bruins got a bit of black eye this summer when a group of kids discovered that B’s owner Jeremy Jacobs had neglected to live up to his end of a deal he made with the city of Boston when the organization put up the TD Garden.  While the Fan Fest may have been initiated as part of a public relations clean up, it allowed thousands of the Black and Gold faithful to meet players, coaches, and a few future Hall of Famers.

The tour wrapped up on Thursday in Providence, home of the B’s AHL affiliate. Bruins President Cam Neely joined in the festivities and sat down with NESN’s Jack Edwards to answer some of the fans questions.  It came to no surprise as the talks quickly moved to David Pastrnak and why the 21-year old forward still hasn’t signed with the team

“Well, I hear from everybody that they don’t want us to sign him.” said a smiling Neely to the assembled fans.  Sweeney continued by stating the B’s had made a ‘significant offer’ to the Czech forward. As of yesterday, the organization hadn’t heard anything back from Pastrnak or his agent.  Still, the Hall of Famer believes that Pasta will be in camp and under contract.”But I feel confident we can get something done,” said Neely to the assembled fans.

(Fun Fact: The number of viewers in the Providence market ALONE is greater than the entire viewing audience of four other NHL teams).

The Bruins scored themselves a public relations coup this week. The Fan Fest was a great way to reach out to fans who wouldn’t usually be able to attend that many games at the TD Garden.   It also helped hundreds of kids get hockey gear.

Personally, it was a rare opportunity to have conversations with players and coaches that didn’t revolve around the team.  You don’t get to talk to an NHL player about their life very often, and it was nice just to talk to them as people. Riley Nash loves golf. Noel Acciari (who grew up six miles away from me) still gets a little homesick for Rhode Island.

The B’s will be doing two more days of Fan Fest in Boston on September 16-17. If you get a chance to be in Beantown, you’ll have a lot of fun and maybe even get a signature or two on your jersey.

Offering proper prayers for a strong season. #BruinsTour #NHLBruins pic.twitter.com/QffPg92jzW

— Andrew E Thompson (@Godwentwhoops) August 31, 2017