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last, when he became the surprise trading-deadline deal that so many presumed meant a second Cup for the powerful Avalanche and a first one for Bourque. It was a trade he had requested from Boston toward the end of what had become one more frustrating season of coming up short.
    â€œThere came a time in that season where I knew it wasn’t going to happen,” says Bourque. “And if I hadn’t made the move, I really don’t know if I would still be playing. I might have just packed it in and retired.”
    The idea of not retiring came to him from an unlikely source, Chris Chelios, another aging defenceman, who had left the Chicago Blackhawks for the Detroit Red Wings and seemed, to Bourque, to be thriving.
    â€œWe had a nice little chat,” Bourque remembers. “It looked like he was really enjoying himself. He was in a situation that was similar to mine in terms of being in a place where they weren’t being very successful. You’re playing a lot of minutes, tough minutes, and really not playing up to the level that you’re used to. When I saw him move and then the way he was playing in Detroit, I talked to him about it. And I certainly thought about what it would mean to me to move somewhere else and what kind of effect it would have to have me playing my game again.”
    He talked it over with his wife, Christiane, and their three children, Melissa, Christopher and Ryan, and when he had their approval he decided to “go for it.” The effect turned out to be astounding, considering his years. Bourque was an instant success in Colorado last season and one of their best playoff performers in what ultimately turned into another disappointment. This yearhe began slowly, but soon was playing his regular thirty minutes of hockey a night and impressively enough to be named a finalist, once again, for the Norris.
    He slipped again early on in these playoffs, but is again healthy and playing like he once did when his playoff beard was red to the roots. “It’s been a great move for me,” he says. “Last year, we made it to the semis and this year to the finals. That’s what it’s all about. You forget that feeling and how good it feels, and it’s good to feel it again.”
    Other players on the team say it is an “inspiration” to see Bourque working so hard to win the Cup they all want. “You hear about guys in this game who have passion,” says Blake, who is often paired with Bourque on defence, “but to give so much to one team and one organization for so long and then to make a change late in your career and to have that same outlook, that’s a passion for the game not many guys have.”
    Blake, who came to Colorado from Los Angeles in February, says his game has picked up since he’s been playing with Bourque. “I don’t think you ever stop learning during your years in the NHL,” Blake says. “I still have a few years left in my career, but I can learn so much from Ray. He’s going to help me from now until I retire.”
    Bourque’s own retirement is a subject that comes up as often as the missing Cup. He candidly admits to being “in denial” about his age—“You don’t want to think about that”—and believes he is in good enough shape to play several more seasons if he really wants to. But that decision he will put off until this coming summer. “I’m going to wait,” he says. “I really don’t know when, or how I’m going to go about it.”
    Summer, however, is still a few weeks off, weeks in which it will be decided whether or not a man with a grizzled beard will actually get to raise the Cup of his dreams or one more time be left staring at the one prize neither he, nor fate, has ever allowed him to touch.
    At the moment, there is only one thing he knows for certain: “I’m running out of time.”
    Ray Bourque finally got