published on May 18, 2024 in celeb

Life after The Lick: Is the Bruins Brad Marchand on the other side of $879,522.46 of angst?

Bruce Cassidy grilled the filets. Brad Marchand ripped into the salad. Sloane, Marchand’s stepson, 8, brainstormed the brilliance of dipping the string beans into soy sauce. Shannon, 9, and Cole, 7, Cassidy’s daughter and son, adopted the maneuver. Sawyer, Marchand’s toddler daughter, entertained herself and her observers by pulling every piece of Tupperware out of the bottom drawer of the Cassidys’ kitchen island.

That day in June of 2018, the weather was nice enough at the Cassidys’ home north of Boston that the big kids had dinner outside. Cassidy, wife Julie, Marchand and wife Katrina settled in the kitchen. As they kept their eyes on Sawyer, the four grownups ate and discussed the matter at hand.

A month before, in the second round of the playoffs, the Bruins’ season ended in five games against Tampa Bay. In Game 4, Marchand wiped out Ryan Callahan with a low hit. It was a borderline move, and one that had become common for the Bruins left wing.

During a subsequent stoppage, the Lightning alternate captain approached Marchand and gave him a jab to express his displeasure. Marchand answered, but not with a punch or face wash or any other expected hockey response. Marchand bumped his visor against his opponent’s, extended his tongue and swiped it up Callahan’s face. He licked him.

“I’d go right in and take a shower,” then-NBC Sports analyst Jeremy Roenick said.

“It’s not good,” said fellow analyst Keith Jones.

“I would probably sucker-punch the guy,” said host Kathryn Tappen. “It’s unbelievable.”

“There’s no question about that too,” Roenick answered. “I don’t know what goes through his head right there. I’d rather have (Marchand) punch him in the face than lick him in the face. There’s no need for that. There’s no licking in hockey.”

“Yeah,” Jones said. “We’ll go with that.”

“I can’t even wrap my head around it,” Tappen said.

A month later, as Marchand sat in Julie Cassidy’s kitchen, she struggled to integrate her knowledge of Marchand with what others were saying and writing about him. Cassidy knew Marchand as a respectful and caring family man during their exchanges at TD Garden. Now, Cassidy was hearing him described as “a rat.”

“I didn’t even know this other side,” Cassidy says. “It was such a shame because I only know this kind, loving person that is responsible. I was disappointed to even know that all this other stuff existed.”

As he sat down to dinner that evening with the Cassidys, Marchand’s reputation was in ribbons. But they all talked. They all listened.

The deepest matter was Marchand’s legacy. By then, he was a Stanley Cup champion, a two-time All-Star and a first-line fixture. Bruce and Julie Cassidy worried that all of his accomplishments would be dismissed because of his behavior.

“You’ve earned some rope to not have to do those things,” Bruce Cassidy told Marchand. “If it’s something you need, we’ll talk about it. If not, let’s get rid of it.”

Bruce Cassidy talks to Brad Marchand and his linemates during a 2018 game in Boston. (Brian Fluharty / USA Today Sports)

On March 17, 2011, the NHL’s Department of Player Safety extracted $6,330.64 from Marchand’s wallet for elbowing R.J. Umberger. It was his first fine. It would not be his last.

Marchand has ceded $879,522.46 in forfeited salary and fines for on-ice infractions. He has been suspended six times for 19 games.

Opinions on Marchand’s infractions have never been muted. After Marchand went low on Sami Salo in 2012, a move that led to a five-game suspension, then-Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault predicted a painful fate for the left wing.

“Some day, somebody’s going to say, ‘Enough is enough,’ and they’re going to hurt the kid, because he plays to hurt players,” Vigneault said. “In my mind, if the league doesn’t take care of it, somebody else will.”

The process would be the same each time. Marchand would apologize. Then he would get into trouble again.

Marchand believed borderline play was stitched into who he was. As a 14-year-old, he took a home-run swing at an opponent’s head. A year later, following a string of stupid penalties, Marchand’s coach demanded to know whether he was stupid or … something else.

To this day, the 2006 third-rounder believes Marco Sturm’s knee injury was the primary reason he made the Bruins roster in 2010-11. In the years that followed, regardless of how much he improved, Marchand never lost the sensation of fighting for his job on every shift.

“Early on, I never really thought about how people were going to view me as a player once I retire,” Marchand says. “It never really bothered me because I was just trying to live another year in the NHL, just get a little bit better and try to stay. I’m not trying to think, ‘Well, in 15 years, how are people going to view me?’ Because I need to get to another year. Then another year.”

Marchand’s style led to individual production and team results. In 2015-16, Marchand led the team with a career-high 37 goals. On Sept. 26, 2016, he signed an eight-year, $49 million extension. Three days later, riding shotgun with Patrice Bergeron and Sidney Crosby, Marchand scored the winning goal for Team Canada in the World Cup of Hockey title game.

“If you play a certain way, do certain things and have success, you’re like, ‘Well, I can’t change because then I won’t have that same success,’ whatever it may be,” says Bruins president Cam Neely. “Athletes in particular are somewhat superstitious. You can say, ‘I’ve still got to do the same stuff. That’s what’s making me successful.’ But certain things like that, for example, isn’t going to make you a better hockey player.”

“That,” in Neely’s words, was the lick.

Ironically, Marchand was neither penalized nor disciplined for dragging his tongue under Callahan’s nose. Condemnation came in other forms.

“I don’t know what the difference is between that and spitting in somebody’s face,” Callahan said after the game. “If I’m not mistaken, spitting is a game misconduct, if not a gross. I don’t know what the difference is there, if it’s not worse. It’s unfortunate that he goes to that low to do that.”

The following day, Colin Campbell, NHL senior vice president of hockey operations, spoke with Marchand and general manager Don Sweeney. This was Marchand’s second offense — he had appeared to lick Toronto’s Leo Komarov earlier that same season — and Campbell made it clear the behavior was unacceptable. If Marchand pulled something like that again, discipline would be swift.

Internally, the message was similar. Marchand had embarrassed himself and the Bruins.

“I think that was the first time anybody ever saw that happen,” Neely recalls with a laugh. “So it was more shocking that it would take place in a sporting event, especially hockey.”

In the weeks following the lick and the Bruins’ playoff exit, Julie Cassidy went back and forth with Katrina Marchand about getting together. The two are good friends. Their children play together regularly. They wanted to see each other one last time before the Marchands departed for vacation in Italy. At the last minute, they settled on a date.

Neither of the Cassidys recalls how one thing led to another. But somehow, they thought about expanding the visit to include the men.

At first, Bruce Cassidy wasn’t sure. The season was over. Marchand didn’t owe Cassidy anything.

“The toughest part is reaching out to the other party to see where they’re at,” Cassidy says. “He might tell you to go screw: ‘No interest, Coach. Sorry.’ Then you find a solution to the problem in a different way. But I’ve always felt, in a lot of walks of life, that when you get two people who work together out of the work environment and into a casual environment, you can get further.”

Cassidy called Marchand and extended the invitation. Marchand agreed.

By Marchand’s recollection, he had never gone to dinner at any of his previous coaches’ houses. This time, though, Marchand didn’t see it that way.

“I didn’t really feel that way about going to Butchy’s,” Marchand says. “We have a really good relationship. We always did, even in the minors. Our kids are the same age. They get along really well. Our wives get along really well. I wasn’t looking at it as a player-coach kind of thing. More as friends.”

That was the key.

A coach does not usually pull a player into his office to praise him. It is regularly the place of last resort, after bench talks or directives in the dressing room or critiques during video sessions fall short of making their points.

“Because at that desk, in there, that’s a position of authority for the other person,” Bruce Cassidy says. “I’ve been on the other side meeting coaches. When you have a cup of coffee on a park bench, it’s easier to discuss things. I’ve been in that chair a few times. Just the mindset changes when you walk to the coach’s office door. You’re a little defensive. You’re preparing your answers. You know it’s going to be something you might not want to hear.”

Cassidy didn’t want to lecture Marchand. Cassidy believed a more casual setting — in everyday wardrobe, not the suits and uniforms of the workplace — would promote a deeper and richer discussion. As they usually do, children helped relax the atmosphere.

By then, Sloane, Shannon and Cole were fast friends. After day games at TD Garden, the three were usually among the first wave of kids to dash into the dressing room. More often than not, they ran right for the buckets of gum before greeting their dads.

It was no different at the Cassidy residence. That day, the kids played hockey in the back yard. They progressed to video games in the basement. Sawyer played with Shannon’s gymnastics cushions.

As night came, the grownups’ conversation progressed toward the lick. By Julie Cassidy’s recollection, the transition happened naturally.

“It wasn’t difficult to get to,” Cassidy says. “It wasn’t like, ‘This is the elephant in the room, let’s get to this conversation because this is what we want to have.’ It just happened.”

Bruce Cassidy addressed Marchand’s legacy. The left wing had turned 30 the month before. It was time, Cassidy said, that Marchand thought about how he wanted to be remembered, even if the end wasn’t close.

Julie Cassidy says she didn’t know her guest as Marshy, Little Ball of Hate, a rat or a licker. He was Brad: a good husband, father, son, grandson and brother.

“It’s disappointing,” she told Marchand of the lick’s aftermath, “because this is not who you are.”

Marchand acknowledged his mistake.

“This is what I did wrong. Hard stop,” Julie Cassidy recalls Marchand saying. “This is how I want to move forward.”

The evening concluded. The families said their goodbyes. As Marchand drove home, he reflected on how the Cassidys — his friends, not his coach and his coach’s wife — helped sharpen the realization that he was at a crossroads.

“You’ve got to put your pride aside a little bit and think long-term,” Marchand said. “That’s what I started to do — look a little further down the road, look at the guys around me that have had success and all kinds of good praise and try to follow their footsteps. It just opened my eyes a little bit and allowed me to try to make good decisions in my actions and my mindset.”

Mixing it up has always been a part of Brad Marchand’s game, as it was here with Tampa Bay Lightning left wing Alex Killorn during the 2018 playoff series. (Kim Klement / USA Today Sports)

Marchand has played 207 games without an incident: no fines, no suspensions, nothing since that dinner at the Cassidys.

“You need to train your body to do certain things and react in certain ways,” Marchand says. “It takes time to do that. I’m calmer now. I don’t get as worked up. Things that used to bother me don’t necessarily bother me. I’m not as concerned about doing certain things or getting in certain guys’ heads.”

Nearly three years without flareups has shown Marchand can excel without acting foolishly. He is a fixture on the best three-zone line in the league. He does not have many competitors for the title of the top all-around left wing in the game. He is a self-made superstar.

“When he first broke in, you could see, ‘OK, he skates well. He competes hard. He’s got good hockey sense.’ That was even before he came to this team,” Neely says. “You knew it in the past. But to get to the level where he’s at now, I don’t know if anybody could honestly say, ‘Oh, he’s going to be a top-line left wing.’ But I give him all the credit in the world to put the time in to make himself just that.”

Nobody knows this better than his teammates. Their post-practice bruises tell the story of how fiercely Marchand fights for every puck.

“In college, watching them win the Cup, I thought he was a rat,” says Bruin Chris Wagner, a Colgate freshman in 2010-11. “He was really good in the Cup run, obviously. But I think he kind of settled down in that middle stage. He still did some things he got punished for. Now he’s really cleaned up his game and become one of the best players in the league. Once you watch him every day in practice, the stuff he tries, how hard he competes, I think that’s the most important thing with him. He competes every shift. He tries to win every single battle.”

Opinions vary. Callahan declined an interview request. Vigneault, perhaps begrudgingly, tipped his cap.

“I don’t usually comment on players from other teams. I focus on my players and my team,” Vigneault says. “But what I can say about Brad is that in my mind — I’ve been in the league since he’s been in the league — he’s a competitive young man. He comes to play. He plays with an edge. He walks that fine line. But he plays with bite. He plays with an edge for Boston. There’s no doubt that it’s not a bad thing to have.”

Blake Gallagher, a lifelong friend from Nova Scotia, commends Marchand for steering clear of the “childish stuff.” At least since the licking incident. “He now recognizes he’s so valuable to the team,” Gallagher says. “He’s no good in the box. He plays in every possible situation. He also knows to be engaged and at his best, right on that edge. He’s found a way to walk that line. Look at his stats. He gets better every year.”

Friends like Gallagher have always known Marchand to have a big heart. Marchand’s hot head, however, obscured his accomplishments on or off the ice.

It’s different now. When the in-game temperature rises, Marchand does his best to hold his tongue, skate away, ignore the situation. All of this has required training.

“It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a long time,” Marchand says. “I’m not going to sit here and say I might not do something stupid again. Because it’s very possible. But we’re here.”

(Graphic: Stu Ohler / The Athletic; photos: Harry How; Claus Andersen; Boston Globe / Getty Images)

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