Andrew Ference

Andrew James Stewart Ference (born March 17, 1979) is a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman for the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League (NHL). An alternate captain for the Bruins during home games, Ference has also played for the Pittsburgh Penguins and Calgary Flames.

WHL and Pittsburgh Penguins
Ference began his hockey career in the Western Hockey League (WHL) with the Portland Winter Hawks. After two full seasons with the team, he was selected 208th overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1997 NHL Entry Draft. Ference played two more seasons with Portland and had a brief stint in the International Hockey League (IHL) with the Kansas City Blades before joining Pittsburgh in 1999.

After making his NHL debut on October 1, 1999, in a game against the Dallas Stars, Ference scored his first NHL goal a month later against the Nashville Predators on November 13, 1999. He split his rookie season between Pittsburgh and their American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, finishing with 6 points (2 goals, 4 assists) in 30 NHL games and 28 points (8 goals, 20 assists) in 44 AHL games.

The next season, Ference continued to share time between both Penguins teams. Ference played in his first NHL playoffs with Pittsburgh in 2001, playing 18 games and scoring 3 goals and 10 points before the Penguins were eliminated by the New Jersey Devils. In his third NHL season, Ference established himself as a full-time NHLer, scoring 11 points in 75 games.

Calgary Flames and NHL Lockout
On February 9, 2003, in the middle of the 2002–03 season, Ference was traded to the Calgary Flames for future considerations. He posted 4 assists in 16 games during the remainder of the season with Calgary. The next season, he registered 16 points with 4 goals and 12 assists in 72 games for Calgary and also played 26 playoff games posting 3 assists. Calgary reached the Stanley Cup Finals, where they lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

With the 2004–05 NHL season suspended due to a lockout, Ference played in the Czech Republic for HC Ceske Budejovice. Ference returned to the Flames when the NHL re-started the next season. He played all 82 games of the season for the first time in his career, scoring a career high 4 goals, 27 assists and 31 points.

Boston Bruins
The following season, on February 10, 2007, he was traded, along with teammate Chuck Kobasew, to the Boston Bruins for defenceman Brad Stuart and center Wayne Primeau. Ference scored 1 goal, along with 15 assists, during the 2008-09 NHL season. On March 23, 2010, he agreed on a three-year contract extension with the Bruins worth an annual average salary of $2.25 million.

On April 22, 2011, Ference was fined $2,500 for an obscene gesture to the crowd at the Bell Centre in game four of The Stanley Cup Playoffs first round series against the Montreal Canadiens, although Ference's comments after the incident make it unclear whether or not the gesture was intentional. In the Bruins 4-3 game 7 victory over the Montreal of the same series, Ference drew much ire for a questionable collision to the head of Canadiens' Jeff Halpern, but upon a disciplinary hearing it was ruled that the hit did not warrant any sort of disciplinary action.

On June 15, 2011, Ference and the Boston Bruins defeated the Vancouver Canucks 4-0 in game 7 of the Finals to win the Stanley Cup.

Family
Ference and Krista Bradford married in 2002. They have two daughters: Ava Tye, born in June 2005, and Stella, born in March 2009.

Environmentalism
Ference's association with environmentalist David Suzuki while in Calgary led him to create a carbon-neutral program for the NHL, which now includes over 500 players who purchase carbon offset credits to counteract the negative environmental impact of professional sports.

Stanley Cup Parade
On September 5, 2011 following the Bruins Stanley Cup championship, Ference organized and led a parade and flash mob in Boston's North End, which is the area where he resides during the NHL season. After bringing the cup to and from Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital on a bike trailer, Ference brought the cup to an area of the North End outside the TD Garden. There, the cup was hoisted up on a platform carried by friends and family, and paraded through the North End, with many stops at local shops along the way. Ference and the other cup-carriers were accompanied by a marching band, members of The Boston Bruins Ice Girls, and the Boston Bruins mascot 'Blades.' Hundreds of fans also joined them for the parade, which was concluded with a dancing flash mob.