TORONTO -- At least one concentrated group of Boston Bruins fans took their place in the suite level at Air Canada Centre for Monday’s Game Six.


 


Fresh off an overnight flight from Oakland and an earlier workout at Rogers Centre, Red Sox players and staff members watched on anxiously as the Bruins battled the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Boston suffered a 3-1 defeat, stretching the best-of-seven series to its limit. [...]

Bill Koch

TORONTO -- At least one concentrated group of Boston Bruins fans took their place in the suite level at Air Canada Centre for Monday’s Game Six.

 

Fresh off an overnight flight from Oakland and an earlier workout at Rogers Centre, Red Sox players and staff members watched on anxiously as the Bruins battled the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Boston suffered a 3-1 defeat, stretching the best-of-seven series to its limit.

 

“Somebody mentioned it a while ago – if they play Game Six it’s going to be Monday on the off day,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “We also talked about having one of those team dinners yesterday, but they’ve got priorities.”

 

Hanley Ramirez was front and center in his own black-and-gold game jersey, a gift from Boston senior manager of media relations Abby Murphy. It was the first hockey game Ramirez, a native of the Dominican Republic who makes his offseason home in Miami, has attended in person. Needless to say, the 34-year-old slugger doesn’t make it a habit to spend too much time outside tropical climates.

 

“There’s no skating in the Dominican,” Ramirez said. “My kids, yeah – not me. They’ll be calling me and I say, ‘No, I’ll wait here.’”

 

Red Sox relievers Joe Kelly, Matt Barnes, Heath Hembree and Carson Smith attended Game Two in Boston last Saturday, a 7-3 hammering of the Maple Leafs that put the Bruins up 2-0 in the series. Kelly received a standing ovation when introduced to the TD Garden crowd, a reward for sparking a brawl against the Yankees two days prior when he drilled Tyler Austin in the back with a fastball.

 

“It’s such a long season,” Cora said. “There are going to be times where there’s going to be cool stuff going on in the cities where we go – even in Boston. And they should enjoy it. They had a blast just like us as a coaching staff.”

 

Athletes supporting one another across the Boston sports scene is nothing new. Members of the Patriots are frequent courtside guests at Celtics playoff games, as wide receiver Julian Edelman was in Boston’s Eastern Conference Game Two with Milwaukee on Tuesday. Perhaps most importantly was the sheer number of folks with Red Sox connections who elected to spend the off night together.

 

“The cool thing is we’re doing everything as a team,” Ramirez said. “We’re just trying to stay together as much as we can.

 

“We spent the day together, went to the game, watched the game, but at the same time we were taking about the Blue Jays. That’s what we want to do – talk about the game and keep winning.”

 

The visiting clubhouse is a fair walk from the first base dugout at the massive downtown Toronto dome, but that’s unlikely to stop Boston’s players and staff from receiving regular updates on Wednesday’s Game Seven with Toronto. Ramirez joked that he would return home should he have an off day to attend the game in person.

 

“That’s Boston right there,” Ramirez said. “We support each other. It’s a champions’ city.”

 

“It was fun for everybody,” Cora said. “You disconnect yourself from what’s going on and then you come back the next day and go to work.”

 

 

 

-- bkoch@providencejournal.com

 

On Twitter: @BillKoch25