Bieksa sounds off on Chara's "insulting" allegation about 2011 Canucks

Sportsnet

You can take Kevin Bieksa out of the Vancouver Canucks, but you can never take the Vancouver Canucks out of Kevin Bieksa.

Earlier this week, a story arose about Bieksa’s 2011 Canucks, with ex- Boston Bruins captain Zdeno Chara sharing an account that Vancouver was celebrating a little early after going up 2-0 in the Stanley Cup Final.

“After losing two games in Vancouver, we saw players from Vancouver coming on the ice in the Garden, and they were actually practising how they would be lifting the Cup and handing off the Cup to each other,” Chara said on an episode of the Games with Names podcast, hosted by former NFL star Julian Edelman and comedian Sam Morril. “And we found out about these things and we were like, ‘Fuck this, we are not going to allow this to happen.’ It just fuelled us.”

An interesting story, maybe. A bit of bulletin board material.

But… is it true?

Not according to Bieksa, at least.

“One of the dumbest things we’ve ever heard clearly, and we work with Elliotte [Friedman],” Bieksa said during Saturday night’s Hockey Night in Canada broadcast.

"One of the dumbest things we've ever heard clearly, and we work with Elliotte."@kbieksa3 addresses Zdeno Chara's comments about the 2011 Vancouver Canucks. pic.twitter.com/oewsf3IQ8b

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) December 11, 2022

Playing ten seasons for the Canucks from 2005-2014, Bieksa had 56 goals, 185 assists, and a plus-minus of +22 in 597 games for Vancouver in his career. Bieksa’s Canucks were so, so close to winning it all after taking 2-0 and 3-2 series leads, but couldn’t close the series out with crushing defeats in Game 6 and Game 7 to hand Boston the iconic trophy.

“You think about all the media that’s there covering the Finals, and all the competitiveness of trying to find some story different than the other person — clearly somebody would’ve reported about that, or had a camera,” Bieksa said. “I don’t think I have to spend a whole lot of time discrediting that this didn’t happen, because logistically it’s impossible.”

Bieksa wasn’t the only player on that 2011 roster to fight back against Chara, with Jannik Hansen also disputing the claims earlier this week.

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“You know, originally I was upset to hear about it, because it’s a little bit of an attack on our character as a team and an organization, but also our leadership group,” Bieksa said. “You’re talking about three first-ballot Hall of Famers in the Sedins and [Roberto] Luongo. You’re talking about [Manny] Malhotra and [Dan] Hamhuis and myself. To think that we would allow something like that to happen, let alone participate in it, is disappointing coming from a guy like Chara.”

Bieksa seems to believe that Chara himself might not have actually seen the alleged incident, but maybe heard it through the grapevine. In other words, it’s merely hearsay, with no real proof behind it.

“Even Chara walks it back a little bit with his comments, from ‘We saw them in the Garden’ to ‘We heard’ to ‘We believe we heard,’” Bieksa added. “You would expect more, and maybe a little bit more mutual respect, that he wouldn’t repeat a story like that, that’s so insulting to us, without fact-checking it or seeing it or witnessing it firsthand. So, I think the main emotion I have right now is just [being] disappointed in him.”

Your move, Zdeno. Or, on second thought… perhaps we’ve already heard from him enough.

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