Boston Bruins
“The one guy working there came over and just started flipping, like, six of them at a time.”
Forward Morgan Geekie already has flipped plenty of narratives regarding his standing as an elite goal scorer.
Fittingly, a certain inverted frozen treat is also resonating with the Bruins these days: the Dairy Queen Blizzard.
The ice cream chain — which served as a rallying point for Brad Marchand and the Panthers last season en route to the Stanley Cup title — apparently has left an impression on Geekie and his teammates of late.
Since the road game against the Senators on Nov. 13, the Bruins have a new tradition after lighting the lamp.
As they make their way down the line of fist bumps awaiting them at the bench, Geekie and several other players flick their wrists, mimicking the usual protocol of Blizzards getting flipped upside-down before being served to customers.
As Geekie explains it, it was that routine — one foreign to winger Viktor Arvidsson — that sparked the creation of a new celly while grabbing a bite in Ottawa.
“I personally think that the Canadian Dairy Queen is above and beyond the American Dairy Queen, which it’s up for debate. But as a Canadian, obviously you know what I’m going to say,” Geekie, a native of Strathclair, Manitoba, said earlier this week at UBS Arena. “And Arvy had never been to a Dairy Queen — ever. And so we were talking it up, and he didn’t understand that they flip it upside-down because it’s so thick or whatever. If they don’t do it, it’s supposed to be free.
“So we were showing him, we all paid, and the one guy working there came over and just started flipping, like, six of them at a time. So, it was this huge joke, everyone’s flipping them, and [Arvidsson] didn’t understand what was going on.”
As they made their way to Canadian Tire Centre, Geekie credited Charlie McAvoy for coming up with the idea of the “DQ flip” to celebrate a goal.
It was an initiative that nearly died on the vine, however, after Geekie scored the first goal of the night in the second period.
“I totally forgot,“ Geekie admitted. “And so I was like, ‘Ah, well, that’ll be the death of that.’ But then [Mark Kastelic] scored that same game, and he was there, so he started doing it.”
“That was my first goal against Ottawa, my former team,” Kastelic added. “So I think I was just excited and remembered that that was the plan the day before, to do the flip. Thankfully, I remembered it going down the line.”
It may not be as choreographed as Carolina’s “Storm Surge,” or born out of as eventful a chain of events as the 2025 Red Sox’ “plane turbulence” celebration.
But it’s gaining traction, with Tanner Jeannot continuing the tradition on Wednesday after snapping a puck past Ilya Sorokin’s glove in the 3-1 win over the Islanders.
“We had like six or seven of us that were there and started doing it,” Geekie said. “You can kind of see the guys on the bench do it, too. It’s a lot of fun.”
Zadorov lends a hand
Defenseman Nikita Zadorov spends most of his shifts doling out punishment.
On Thursday morning, Zadorov and his family instead handed out pies to those in need as part of the Bruins’ annual Thanksgiving Pie Delivery event — making stops at local organizations including St. Francis House and the Pine Street Inn.
This marks the 16th season that a Bruins player has delivered pies on Thanksgiving morning. Aaron Ward started by donating turkeys in 2008, with Dennis Wideman being the first Bruin to hand out pies, the following year.
The Librarian
While Zadorov is ingratiating himself to Bruins fans, he might be persona non grata on Long Island. Whenever he touched the puck on Wednesday night, the drone of boos usually followed, given Zadorov’s candid comments about the lack of energy at the Islanders’ barn during the Bruins’ last visit on Nov. 4.
“We needed to create our own energy because the crowd was sleeping tonight a little bit,” Zadorov said of causing a fracas by shoving rookie Matthew Schaefer in that shootout win.
Zadorov continued on social media after several Islanders fans directed some heated messages toward him.
“Get out of my DMs and go to the rink to cheer for your team,” Zadorov wrote on Instagram. “That place was [a library] tonight!”
Zadorov — who subsequently posted a photo of himself reading a book at UBS Arena after Wednesday’s win — continued to poke the bear after completing a season sweep of the Islanders.
“No,” Zadorov said when asked if he heard the jeers. “Did they boo me? I thought it was quiet today, too.”
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