That’s the time the B’s will take on intense rival the Canadiens in Montreal for the first preseason game. How strange is it that the man who launched the Bruins — the first NHL franchise in the United States — hatched that plan while watching the Stanley Cup playoffs in Montreal in 1924? That man, Vermont native and grocery store financier Charles Francis Adams, paid a rumored $15,000 for the privilege of starting a team that in its 90-year history has appeared in 19 Stanley Cup finals and won six times.

As the Bruins preseason is about to kick off, we look at the team past and present.


$20-$430.50

Price range for individual tickets this season

8

Number of countries represented on the 2014-15 roster (under contract as of early September)

BEAR IN MIND

Jim Davis/Globe Staff

Adams said the team’s identity “should preferably be related to an untamed animal whose name was synonymous with size, strength, agility, ferocity, cunning, and in the color brown category,” according to the book 100 Things Bruins Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die. A contest yielded nothing that resonated. The name “Bruins” was suggested by the coach’s secretary — a Montreal native.

21%

Percentage of New England fans in a recent survey who said the Bruins are their favorite local sports team, a 10 percentage-point gain since 2012; The Patriots received 42 percent, the Red Sox 30 percent, and the Celtics 6 percent

TRUE COLORS

Until the mid-1930s, when the team adopted black and gold, the Bruins took the ice in brown and gold, the same colors used to represent the team founder’s store chain.

1948-1949

Season that the beloved spoked B — which some say honors Boston’s stature as the “Hub of the Universe” — became the team logo

1976

Rene Rancourt (left) sang the National Anthem in remembrance of the Boston Marathon bombing victims in April 2013. Jim Rogash/Getty Images

Year Rene Rancourt began singing the national anthem regularly at Bruins games; All spiffy in his tuxedo, he signs off with a salute, not so much for the fans, but for an elderly woman who would watch the Bruins to see him sing the anthem and then would turn off the TV


10

Ray Bourque. Lane Turner/Globe staff/file

Sweater numbers the Bruins have retired

> 77 — Ray Bourque

> 8 — Cam Neely

> 4 — Bobby Orr

> 2 — Eddie Shore

> 3 — Lionel Hitchman

> 5 — Aubrey “Dit” Clapper

> 7 — Phil Esposito

> 9 — John Bucyk

> 15 — Milt Schmidt

> 24 — Terry O’Reilly

53

Number of Bruins inducted into the NHL Hall of Fame (48 as players)

Sources: Boston Bruins; NHL.com; Murray Hill Talent; “100 Things Bruins Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die,” by Matt Kalman; Channel Media & Market Research