By: Camryn Meece | Follow me on Twitter / X @MeeceCamryn
Nearly seven decades after the Boston Bruins first traveled through Germany, the franchise is set to return. The National Hockey League (NHL) announced Thursday that the Bruins will play two regular-season games in Munich during the 2027-28 season as part of the 2027 NHL Global Series Germany. The games will be held at SAP Garden, marking the first time Munich has hosted NHL regular-season competition.
While the trip will be the Bruins’ first time playing regular-season games in Germany, it will not be the franchise’s first time taking the ice there. That history dates back all the way to 1959.
Following the 1958-59 season, the Bruins joined the New York Rangers for a 23-game exhibition tour across Europe. The month-long trip took the teams through England, Switzerland, France, Belgium, West Germany, and Austria, giving NHL players a chance to showcase the sport to audiences across the continent.
International exhibition tours were a different part of the NHL in the 1950s. Rather than the shorter preseason trips fans know today, teams occasionally embarked on lengthy tours after the regular season, bringing professional hockey to cities that rarely saw NHL competition. The Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Canadiens took part in the NHL’s first European tour in the spring of 1938, playing nine exhibition games across England and France.
More than two decades later, the Bruins and Rangers continued that tradition when their tour brought them to several cities in West Germany, including Dortmund, Essen, Krefeld, and West Berlin. The two teams played nine games in West Germany, with Boston winning several as the tour continued through Europe.
The Bruins made an impression in West Germany, going 7-1-1 against the Rangers over nine games. Boston opened the German portion of the tour with four consecutive victories before dominating with an 8-0 win and a 7-2 victory in back-to-back games. The Bruins closed the trip with two wins and a tie, continuing a strong run through the country.
For the European fans, though, NHL hockey was still a new experience in many of the cities the teams visited. Attendance ranged from 11,000 fans in Geneva to just 600 for the first game in Berlin, showing just how unfamiliar the NHL was in some parts of Europe. For many fans, the tour offered a rare chance to see professional hockey at the highest level in person and, for those in Germany, an introduction to the Boston Bruins.
Almost 70 years later, the Bruins’ connection to Germany looks a little different. The organization now has three prominent German connections: head coach Marco Sturm, forward Lukas Reichel, and Munich native JJ Peterka. Sturm made history as the first German-born player in Bruins history before eventually returning to the organization as its head coach. The upcoming games will also give Peterka a chance to play an NHL regular-season game in the city where his hockey career began.
The Germany the Bruins visited in 1959 was very different from the one they will encounter in 2027. This time, Boston won’t be introducing German fans to the NHL.
Leave a Reply