This Bruins trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the whole century of the Boston Bruins, from the grocery-store colors of 1924 and the first NHL game ever played in the United States to the record-shattering 65-win team of 2022-23. Along the way it stops at Eddie Shore and the Ace Bailey affair, the Kraut Line, Willie O'Ree's barrier-breaking debut, Bobby Orr's flight through the air, Phil Esposito's 76 goals, the Bourque number swap and the 2011 Cup in Vancouver. There is plenty of Garden lore too: the undersized ice, the 1988 blackout, Gerry Cheevers' stitched mask, the too-many-men penalty of 1979, the shoe incident at Madison Square Garden and the mascot named by a nine-year-old. Roughly a third of the questions are warm-ups any fan will get; the rest climb toward the kind of detail only a lifelong Black-and-Gold obsessive would know. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the primary sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In what year did the Bruins begin play, making them the oldest NHL franchise based in the United States?
1924
They are the third-oldest active NHL team overall, behind only Montreal and Toronto.
Q 02Which Boston grocery magnate bought the franchise that became the Bruins?
Charles Adams
Sports promoter Thomas Duggan held options on three US franchises and sold one to Adams, who paid $15,000 for it.
Q 03The team's original brown-and-yellow uniform colors were borrowed from what?
First National Stores grocery chain
The Bruins did not switch to black and gold until later, and they revived the brown look for the 2010 Winter Classic.
Q 04Which former player, the club's first general manager, came up with the name 'Bruins'?
Art Ross
He stayed on as GM until 1954 and later donated the trophy that still bears his name for the NHL's leading scorer.
Q 05The Bruins won the first NHL game ever played in the United States, in 1924, against which opponent?
Montreal Maroons
The 2-1 win at Boston Arena was a rare high point: the team then lost 11 straight and finished last at 6-24-0.
Q 06Which of these teams was NOT one of the Original Six alongside the Bruins?
Pittsburgh Penguins
Despite the name, only Montreal and Toronto are true charter members; the six were simply the only teams from 1942 to 1967.
Q 07How many Stanley Cups have the Bruins won?
6
That ties them with Chicago for fourth-most, behind Montreal (24), Toronto (13) and Detroit (11).
Q 08The Bruins won their first Stanley Cup in 1929 by beating which team in a best-of-three final?
New York Rangers
Boston did not lose a single playoff game that spring, a feat no team repeated until 1952.
Q 09Whose No. 3 became the first number ever retired by the Bruins, in February 1934?
Lionel Hitchman
It was only the second number retirement in North American pro sports, eight days after Toronto retired Ace Bailey's No. 6.
Q 10Which bruising Bruins defenceman was nicknamed 'the Edmonton Express'?
Eddie Shore
He won the Hart Trophy four times, still the most ever by a defenceman, and later owned the AHL's Springfield Indians for decades.
Q 11Which player was NOT a member of the Bruins' famed Kraut Line?
Bill Cowley
The three linemates all grew up together in Kitchener, Ontario, and enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force together in 1942.
Q 12What did the Kraut Line achieve in the 1939-40 season that no NHL line had done before?
Finished first, second and third in league scoring
Only Montreal's Punch Line (1944-45) and Detroit's Production Line (1949-50) have matched it since.
Q 13Which Kraut Line centre later coached the Bruins and, as GM, built the 1970 and 1972 champions?
Milt Schmidt
Q 21How many goals did Phil Esposito score in 1970-71, a record until Wayne Gretzky broke it in 1982?
76
He also fired 550 shots on goal that season, a mark no one else has come within 100 of, and Esposito personally handed Gretzky the puck when the record fell.
Q 22At the December 1987 ceremony retiring Phil Esposito's No. 7, what did Ray Bourque do?
Peeled off his No. 7 jersey to reveal a No. 77
Bourque had been permitted to keep wearing 7 indefinitely; he surrendered it that night and wore 77 for the rest of his career.
Q 23In March 2000, after 21 Boston seasons, Ray Bourque was traded to which team, where he won a Cup?
He is the only person in franchise history to serve as captain, coach and general manager, and his No. 15 hangs in the rafters.
Q 14Which rookie goaltender, 'Mr. Zero', won both the Calder and Vezina for the 1938-39 champion Bruins?
Frank Brimsek
He was the first rookie ever named to the NHL First All-Star Team, and his 1.56 goals-against average that year is still a franchise record.
Q 15Willie O'Ree became the NHL's first Black player on January 18, 1958, when the Bruins faced which team?
Montreal Canadiens
He kept a secret that would have kept him out of the league: an errant puck had left him blind in his right eye two years earlier.
Q 16Bobby Orr's famous overtime goal in 1970 completed a four-game sweep of which team?
St. Louis Blues
It was Boston's first Cup in 29 years, and the same two teams met again in the 2019 Final with the opposite result.
Q 17Who set up Bobby Orr's Cup-winning goal in 1970 with a give-and-go pass from behind the net?
Derek Sanderson
The two remained close for life; Orr later paid for his friend's rehab and they eventually ran a financial firm for hockey players together.
Q 18Which photographer captured the iconic image of Bobby Orr flying through the air after his 1970 goal?
Ray Lussier
Orr was airborne because Blues defenceman Noel Picard tripped him just after the puck went in; the shot still opens Hockey Night in Canada.
Q 19The bronze Bobby Orr statue outside TD Garden, unveiled in 2010, depicts him doing what?
Airborne just after scoring in 1970
It was unveiled on May 10, 2010, exactly 40 years to the day after the goal it captures.
Q 20In 1967 the Bruins got Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield from which team?
Chicago Black Hawks
Boston gave up Pit Martin, Gilles Marotte and Jack Norris; the following spring the Bruins made the playoffs for the first of 29 straight seasons.
Colorado Avalanche
Days after winning in 2001 he brought the Cup back to Boston for a rally of some 20,000 fans at City Hall Plaza.
Q 24Boston's 1979 first-round pick used on Ray Bourque came from trading which goaltender to the Kings?
Ron Grahame
GM Harry Sinden actually wanted Keith Brown, who went to Chicago one pick earlier; the Bruins 'settled' for Bourque.
Q 25In 1987 the Bruins sent Barry Pederson to Vancouver for which right winger, the archetypal NHL power forward?
Cam Neely
'Bam-Bam Cam' later scored 50 goals in just 44 games in 1993-94 and became the team's president in 2010.
Q 26The Bruins lost the 1988 and 1990 Stanley Cup Finals to the same team. Which one?
Edmonton Oilers
Wayne Gretzky won the Conn Smythe in 1988, and in 1990 Boston's John Byce tied a record by scoring ten seconds into a Final game.
Q 27What suspended Game 4 of the 1988 Final at Boston Garden with the score tied 3-3?
A power failure
A 1930s-vintage switchgear failed and the emergency generator did not start; the game was replayed in full two days later on the road.
Q 28Which boxing promoter designed Boston Garden and built the third New York arena of the same name?
Tex Rickard
It opened in 1928 as 'Boston Madison Square Garden' and outlived its New York namesake by 30 years.
Q 29In what year did the Bruins leave the old Boston Garden for the FleetCenter (TD Garden)?
1995
The new building opened as the FleetCenter; the Bruins' first game there was a 4-4 tie with the Islanders.
Q 30The eight spokes on the Bruins' 'Spoked-B' logo nod to which nickname for Boston?
The Hub
The wheel logo debuted for the club's 25th anniversary in 1948 and has been tweaked repeatedly since, including in 2025.