Bob Snow also writes for NHL.com. This week’s Throwback Thursday is Part One in a Three-Part series that is edited for Bruins Daily from previous NHL.com articles. Part Two is the retiring of Cam Neely’s No. 8 in 2004; Part Three is the retiring of Terry O’Reilly’s No. 24 in 2002. Snow covered both events for NHL.com.

Fifty years — and counting.

I’ve been blessed with a lot of puck luck over the past half-century.

During hockey season in high school, most weekends began on Sunday night. Four bucks every few weeks – and a lengthy wait at the Boston Garden box office — bought the next four-game strip of Bruins tickets. At a buck apiece, a ticket in the second balcony of the old “Gahden” in the 1960’s was this lifetime’s bargain.

Sunday and Thursday nights were reserved for a required 5:30 arrival – and the hour wait for the 6:30 mad dash to the second balcony. With squatter’s rights for a 7:30 face-off, we rotated our threesome for two periods of the standing-room front-row view.

Inseparable sufferers were we of Bruin finishes of fifth or sixth place in the “Original Six.” It mattered not.

For a buck, I got to see Bobby Orr’s very first of his many magnificent shifts, Phil Esposito set up in the slot, and Wayne Cashman crash the corners 40 times a year. Balcony seats were made to watch No. 4, “Espo,” and “Cash.” Eight home games apiece against the Rangers, Wings, Leafs, Hawks, and of course, those damn Canadiens.

What any purist would pay for that schedule today, eh?

Cup runs – and wins — in the early 70’s increased ticket prices and eliminated access to our 3×3 piece of hockey heaven when season-ticket sales took off, and standing room was eliminated in the balconies. Obstructed view seats, and a reduced Bruin schedule when job and grad-school responsibilities took hold. Besides, it took every Bruin fan a few years to get used to life without Orr, not to mention that one penalty on May 10, 1979, that still has rusting dagger fragments in many a fan’s heart.

1980 began a great run in Section 99, Row H with hockey bud John Lee, and a new kid on the Bruins’ block in Ray Bourque. Terry O’Reilly made each $4.50 investment entertainment in itself. Nothing different in the playoff years. The Big Bad B’s were still just plain bad in any series with Montreal. The one thrill still smoldering is Brad Park’s OT goal in Game 7 of the ’83 division final.

Kids, budgets and life constraints appeared to bring our collective Bruin lives to a comfortable close at the end of that 1986 season. Until Jack D’Entremont came to our poker game one night – and a Bruins’ conversation unfolded.

“Yeah,” Jack said, “I think I’m giving up my season tickets. Can’t find anyone interested in picking up some of the package.”

“Where are they,” I asked?

“Three seats in Section G, Row 1, next to the goal judge.”

Fill in the ensuing conversation between Mr. Lee and me. We took a partial-season package for the next decade.

“Puck luck,” you say?

Add the Cam Neely trade a few months later.

The play of Orr, Espo and Bourque was created for the balcony. Neely and Terry O’Reilly were sculpted for Section G, Row 1: ice level right behind the glass and the seat next to the goal judge.

Only four Boston athletes ever truly took me out of my seat on site — and on the tube: Carl Yastrzemski in the 1967 Sox pennant drive and World Series, Bobby Orr every shift, Larry vs. Magic on the parquet, and Cam Neely when he crossed the blue line or headed into a corner.

There are no words to describe this 6-foot-one, 218 pounds of gristle from ice level. Only Peter Forsberg came remotely close.

Let’s spare his super stats for now. End to end and wire-to-wire, Neely went all-out every shift. He lined up checks from the locker room, never put a butt to a bench between shifts, and developed an aura, which to this day, still the raises the hairs when recreating the image of his crunching body checks and magnificent power.

Whenever Neely lit the lamp above my head, just once I wanted to lean over, scoop that goal-judge’s black button and be the very first to initiate a Garden decibel level unmatched since Neely hung ‘em up in ’96.

Bring Claude Lemieux, Ulf Samuellson, and a cast of other Neely nemeses into the Garden, and the game took on a surreal air of excitement.

Pure anticipation created additional adrenaline in Row 1 when Neely came over the boards. Whether regular-season games, the playoffs – especially against Montreal – or the two Cup Finals in ’88 and ’90, the cascading noise off the glass produced by a Neely goal was downright painful.

My fondest and deepest memory of Cam Neely is his thundering stride, especially into the offensive zone. From ice level, it intensified in the neutral zone. From there he just kicked it into overdrive and followed his nose. Contorted more each year from an untold number of breaks, No. 8 would cross the blue line with brown eyes widening, nostrils flaring, shoulders dipping, skates planting, body angling — and nothin’ but net on his radar screen.

The specific outcomes are blurred in history, but magnified in the memory. Goals, passes, shots, checks. Pick the most appropriate adjectives for Cam Neely’s on-ice accomplishments, and we put a token compliment in print.

It’s even tougher to write about his inner clock and off-ice contributions, especially his founding of The Cam Neely Foundation in memory of his parents. The Neely House was built to host families whose members are undergoing cancer treatment in Boston area hospitals.

In 1996, the Bruins – and Neely – “retired” from the old Boston Garden.

Neely for good—after that dedicated hip rehab on a battle-weary frame that put up numbers still etched atop key Bruins’ records.

Our seats shifted to Section 18, Row 1 in the then FleetCenter, before I landed the gig writing about the game on the frozen sheet in 2000 for NHL.com.

Two years later in 2002 to cover the retirement of O’Reilly’s No. 24, I looked down from the press box comparable to where it all began some four decades prior in that second balcony of that old frozen fortress.

In 2004, the retirement of No. 8.

Next Thursday, we’ll throw it back to that memorable Monday night, January 12, 2004, when the current Bruins’ president joined Eddie Shore (2), Lionel Hitchman (3), Bobby Orr (4), Aubrey “Dit” Clapper, Phil Esposito (7), John Bucyk (9), Milt Schmidt (15), Terry O’Reilly (24) and Ray Bourque (77) atop the TD Garden rafters.