Boston Bruins: Zdeno Chara talks summer preparation and injuries
By Filip Canda
It’s almost unbelievable that Zdeno Chara, the Boston Bruins captain, will participate in his 22nd NHL season next year.
At the age of 42, Zdeno Chara has twice been retained by the Boston Bruins preventing any sort of free agency scenario. By the end of this coming season, he’ll be a 43 year-old; with the ice-time he sees, only Jaromir Jagr compares at the same elite level at that sort of age.
During the summer, Zdeno Chara slowly starts to prepare for the new season with the Boston Bruins. Why slowly? Certainly, it was very hard for him to recover from a broken jaw and some other issues which left him out from Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Final in Carolina.
“I couldn’t enjoy quite a relaxing summer as I have been used to. A few surgeries and repairs were undergone. I had to make sure I’m healthy again. It definitely slowed down my preparation for the upcoming season, but now I’m ready,” said Chara while spending summer in his home Slovakia (in Slovakian).
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His home is in Trencin, where Chara was born in 1977. However, it’s a lot of travel for him. “During the majority of the time, I’m with my family and kids in Trencin, trying to spend some time together. But when I practice, I have to travel to the nearby city Piestany, because the situation around renting an ice surface in Trencin this summer is a bit complicated. I spent some time playing hockey in Piestany as well, it’s a bit refreshing for me to come back there,” said Chara.
In Piestany, the Hlinka-Gretzky Cup 2019 takes place too. You may have followed the Team USA playing their group stage games in that city. But what keeps Zdeno Chara motivated ahead of his 22nd season in the NHL?
“I love this sport, I love what I’m doing. I’m very happy that I can do the job I love and to be with my younger teammates,” apparently, spending time with Boston Bruins’ younger guys helps Zdeno Chara. “It’s amazing to see that they are willing to listen and learn. I’m thrilled to hand them my own experience and my advice. They respect it,” said Chara.
What is the key for him as he looks to keep playing hockey even after the next season?
“I love this sport, I love what I’m doing.”
“I’m just trying to do the same things again and again. I pay a lot of attention to pre-practice activities and training, stretching, regeneration. What helps me is the ice bath following the games or practices, it really makes wonders. And, of course, I’m on plant-based food regime, which makes me feel fresher and healthier. And it definitely helps me with keeping the recovery time as low as possible. I feel much better now with this new diet,” commented Zdeno Chara.
So, this is the current status of the summer’s preparation of the Boston Bruins captain, Zdeno Chara.
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He hopes that the Boston Bruins can give him one more chance to hoist the Stanley Cup. “You have to move on quickly. That’s life. Now we have to forget and get ready for the next season, that’s important,” told the media in Slovakia Chara reflecting the recent Stanley Cup Final loss.