The NHL Winter Classic, played on Monday before a sell-out crowd of some 39,000 at Fenway Park, ended in a 2-1 victory for the Boston Bruins over the Pittsburgh Penguins. But the event wasn’t just a thrill for ice hockey fans. Two days before, on New Year’s Eve, NHL officials and former Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask visited the Boys and Girls Clubs of Dorchester (BGCD) to present a $300,000 check in support of the Dorchester Fieldhouse project, a joint venture between BGCD and the Martin Richard Foundation (MRF).

The donation was made on behalf of the Boston Bruins Foundation, with support from the NHL and the Red Sox, along with other benefactors.
Jeff Scott, vice president of community development for the NHL, said the league has been supporting “Legacy Projects” in Winter Classic host cities since 2003, at a cost of more than $6 million – including one in Charlestown in 2016. He said the 2023 project will leave a legacy of growing the game for underrepresented people in the hockey world like “young girls, people in the BIPOC communities, and with those in the disabled community.”

BGCD’s Bob Scannell, MRF’s Bill Richard, and Bob Sweeney of the Bruins Foundation celebrate the occasion. Seth Daniel photos

“If hockey is for everyone, we want to believe that and take actions to grow the game in that way,” he noted. “We are beyond excited for this opportunity and want to make sure the 50,000 young people this community serves can access this amazing fieldhouse.”

Bob Sweeney, president of the Boston Bruins Foundation, said that the Fieldhouse— which will be built on Mount Vernon Street on Dorchester’s Columbia Point– was the perfect choice.

Blades the Bruin tries a slapshot on BGCD member TJ Gay in goal.

“We went back and forth about building a playground at a school or a club around Fenway,” said Sweeney, who was on hand for the event, which included a street hockey game inside the Marr Clubhouse on Deer Street. “But the more and more we talked with Bob [Scannell, president/CEO of BGCD] and Bill [Richard of MRF], the Fieldhouse just made so much sense. The amounts of kids it will serve and the opportunities there will be amazing.”

The Dorchester Fieldhouse, approved for construction by city officials last year, will be a fully accessible, indoor facility to include state-of-the-art, athletic amenities and other programming. It will serve more than 50,000 young people who live within a three-mile radius of the site.
Bill Richard was on hand for the event, along with his wife Denise and Martin’s sister Jane.

“Our relationship with the Bruins goes way back,” said Bill. “It was hard for me to watch hockey games after 2013, but the Bruins reached out to us and what you do for us and other families whose lives have taken a turn for the worse, it just shows how the community has come to rely on you, the Bruins Foundation and the Red Sox Foundation to lift people up.”

As eager children awaited a chance to play hockey in the gym with retired goalie Tuukka Rask, Richard recalled how his son, Martin, and siblings used to play street hockey in their driveway at home.

“He loved baseball, and even though he hated the cold, he loved hockey,” recalled Richard. “They always played street hockey and Martin would play with his siblings…I remember two minutes for high sticking (from Jane) and Martin getting stitches in his eye.”

“I still wouldn’t take that back,” shouted Jane, now a high school student, with a laugh from the back.

Bill Richard said their entire family and the BGCD are excited for the fundraising momentum the Legacy Project status provided and are hopeful for a groundbreaking in 2023. “It’s high time Dorchester had a facility like this,” he said.

The $300,000 donation to the fieldhouse comes in combination from the NHL, the Boston Bruins, the Boston Bruins Foundation, the Boston Red Sox, and the Boston Red Sox Foundation.