PRAGUE — He remembers being young, alone, scared when he arrived here, a teenager living on his own for the first time and far from convinced that pro hockey would end up his life’s work.

“Yes, Zdeno, you go to Prague,’’ his coach in Trencin said to him sarcastically, the day he finally allowed the tall, gawky kid to leave his hometown Slovak team to pursue his foolish dream. “You go there, Zdeno, and you show them in Prague how hockey is played.’’

So on that day, Zdeno Chara plucked his transferable hockey license from the doubting coach’s desk, nodded goodbye, muted his resentment, and made his way to the Czech Republic.

“I took it,’’ a proud Chara said the other day, noting how he stifled his aggravation in that instant some 15 years ago. “He didn’t believe in me. He was so arrogant.

“I never played for [Dukla’s] A team, never their junior team, just their third string down, you know? I just took the paper from him and said, ‘Yeah, OK.’ And I walked out. That was it. Goodbye.’’

Chara today is among the world’s top defensemen, an NHL star, and an icon in his native Slovakia. Here this week with the Bruins as part of the NHL’s six-team European tour, the 33-year-old Trencin tower of power will be sporting the captain’s C for the Bruins again, for a fifth season, when Boston opens its NHL season Saturday against the Phoenix Coyotes at 02 arena.

He has a Norris Trophy (2009) to his credit as the NHL’s best defenseman, and an annual salary ($7.5 million) that slots him No. 9 in the league and first among blue liners.

And here, in a city that in the mid ’90s was slowly, inexorably finding its way in the world, was where everything really started for Chara. The two were a perfect match, a city and player with similar dreams, each in need of profile and patience. A city trying to feel its way through new politics, a new economy, a new world standing. A player just looking for a break.

Getting some notice Chara moved into a one-bedroom apartment near the storied arena of his new team, Sparta Praha, and played on Sparta’s junior A squad. He cooked for himself, did his laundry, darted home to Trencin to see his mother and father on the odd free day. Otherwise, it was hockey, morning and afternoon and night, hockey in a big European city where the sport mattered, and where a smattering of NHL clubs had just begun to station scouts. Chara moved into a one-bedroom apartment near the storied arena of his new team, Sparta Praha, and played on Sparta’s junior A squad. He cooked for himself, did his laundry, darted home to Trencin to see his mother and father on the odd free day. Otherwise, it was hockey, morning and afternoon and night, hockey in a big European city where the sport mattered, and where a smattering of NHL clubs had just begun to station scouts.