BOSTON — The Boston Bruins provided their own unique finish to Fenway Park’s history of memorable endings.
In the stadium where Ted Williams hit his 521st homer into the bullpen in the last at-bat of his career in 1960, and Carton Fisk waved his homer fair down the left-field line, winning Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, Marco Sturm’s overtime goal Friday gave the Bruins a 2-1 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers in the Winter Classic.
Sturm’s achievement certainly doesn’t measure up to those. But for the winners of the first NHL game in baseball’s oldest stadium, it was a moment they won’t soon forget.
“It’s probably going to be my most memorable goal ever, and I’m going to enjoy it,” Sturm said.
The rink ran from the left-field to right-field foul lines, primarily across the infield, with the center dot at second base — the spot where Dustin Pedroia makes his double-play pivot.
When Sturm scored at 1:57 of overtime, teammates poured off the bench and surrounded him behind the net, where short left field would be for baseball games.
Despite the loss that ended the Flyers’ four-game winning streak, coach Peter Laviolette was excited to be a part of the NHL’s third annual New Year’s Day outdoor game.
“The experience is once in a lifetime,” he said. “Bruins, Flyers, 40,000 fans on a perfect day, you couldn’t ask for anything better for the game of hockey.”
As the minutes ticked away, it looked like the Bruins might end up like many teams that faced Roger Clemens in Fenway: scoreless.
Danny Syvret gave the Flyers the lead at 4:42 of the second period with the first goal of his career. And with less than five minutes left, goalie Michael Leighton’s scoreless streak had gone over 150 minutes, and the sellout crowd of 38,112 had little to cheer.
“For a while there, I didn’t know if they were going to ever find out how these fans were going to react if we scored a goal,” Boston coach Claude Julien said.
But then Mark Recchi, a former Flyer, tied it on a power play when he deflected Derek Morris’ shot past Leigh- ton with 2:18 left in the third period. Sturm capped the comeback when he tipped in a pass from Patrice Bergeron.
“It was a phenomenal day,” Bergeron said. “It was a nice ending.”
Recchi’s goal ended Leigh- ton’s shutout streak at 154 minutes, 7 seconds. Then Sturm gave the Bruins their fifth win in six games, although some Flyers contended Boston had too many men on the ice.
“From where we were, it looked like it, but we don’t make the calls,” Jeff Carter said.
