Boston Sports Then and Now

BST&N Looks Back....

• Vintage Athlete Of The Month: Andy Brickley
  April 21, 2012 | 11:06 am

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  Andy Brickley

  Andy Brickley’s voice is familiar throughout New England and to those of us out-of-market fans who get the NESN broadcasts via the NHL’s Center Ice package. Brickley is the top TV analyst for Boston Bruins’ hockey games. Most fans know he was a part of Boston’s 1989-90 teams that reached the Stanley Cup Finals. What many fans may not know is how hard Brickley has had to work for everything in his career. To pay tribute to his effort and to acknowledge his tremendous contributions to the culture of Boston Bruins hockey is why he is BST&N’s Vintage Athlete Of The Month for April. The need to prove himself to skeptics started right away in college. Brickley went to school at New Hampshire, but had to walk on the hockey team. He made the squad and played all four years, from 1979-82. By the end of his career he had made first-team All-American and led New Hampshire to the Frozen Four in his senior year. Two years into his college career he was selected in the NHL Entry Draft, but by the skin of his teeth—Brickley was the final player chosen in a 210-player draft, going to the Philadelphia Flyers. He began his pro career there in the fall of 1982, but a year later he was traded to Pittsburgh, as part of a package involving multiple players and draft picks. By rights, this should have been the point when his career took off. He scored 18 goals in 50 games, the highest goal output of his career and also had 12 assists. But he ended up demoted to the minor leagues for the egregious sin of breaking curfew. To put the early 1980s in perspective, this was a time when frequent reports of players’ cocaine addictions were becoming public—in all sports. Seen in that light, the idea of demoting Brickley because he broke curfew seems absurd beyond belief.

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