There are certain local athletes whose names can't be spoken without prefixing their hometowns. Billerica's Tom Glavine. Canton's Bobby Witt. Milton's Rich Hill. Medford's Keith Tkachuk.
That last one fit the region to a tee. Born in Melrose but raised a couple of towns over, Tkachuk was the prototypical New Englander on the ice -- tough, skilled, nasty. A true power forward in the mold of Bruins Hall of Famer Cam Neely, Tkachuk was a rugged 50-goal scorer in the 1990s who incensed opponents not just with a motormouth, but a willingness to plant himself like a donkey in the crease and accept the resulting punishment. He gave better than he got.
Tkachuk retired in 2010 with more than 500 goals and he remains one of the best players not enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Because he never skated on home ice within 1,000 miles of Boston, Tkachuk isn't as revered around here as he probably should be. A season or two in a Bruins uniform would've done wonders, a la West Roxbury's Chris Nilan.
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Then again, maybe it's for the best that Tkachuk's ties have faded, because it makes it that much easier to hate his son.
"Hate" may sound like a strong word, but only if you haven't watched Matthew Tkachuk play.
As skilled as his dad but more indifferent about the line between hard-nosed and dirty, Tkachuk has made himself a focal point of the Bruins-Panthers series both with the puck and in post-play scrums. His dazzling between-the-legs goal in Game 4 earned its hundred replays, but so, too, have his varied extracurriculars.
When the whistle blows out of nowhere and the camera pans frantically to see why everyone's suddenly scrapping, invariably the focus falls on the smug face of Tkachuk, one corner of his mouthguard gritted between his molars, looking like an extra from the melee scene in Good Will Hunting.
Tkachuk's transgressions this series are legion. He earned a $5,000 fine for cross-checking Garnet Hathaway in the kidney at the end of the first period of Sunday's Game 4, and then used his intermission interview to unrepentantly accuse Hathaway of taking a dive despite the blatantly dirty nature of the hit. The Bruins opened the next period on the power play and scored.
That same game, Tkachuk whack, whack, whacked at goalie Linus Ullmark until the mild-mannered Swede could take it no longer, dropping his gloves and throwing a punch at Tkachuk during a line brawl in the final minutes of Boston's 6-2 victory. "I think we're going to keep Linus's hands intact and not put him at risk of breaking anybody's face," defenseman Brandon Carlo told reporters.
That Tkachuk could elicit such a response surprised no one. ESPN's on-ice microphones caught him F-bombing Bruins center Tomáš Nosek with impunity during a Game 2 argument between the benches, tastefully repeating a synonym for harlot as well. This is all on top of various post-whistle jabs, elbows, and slashes while he channels his inner Claude Lemieux as the game's most highly skilled instigator.
And there's no question that Tkachuk is wildly talented. He's coming off his second straight 100-point season, and he has been Florida's primary offensive threat in this series, with two goals and three assists. He scored Florida's lone goal of Game 1 with an opportunistic snipe off a Dmitry Orlov giveaway, and his two assists propelled the Panthers to a 6-3 win in Game 2.
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He even tried to score a lacrosse/Michigan goal in Game 3, hoisting the puck onto his stick behind the net before losing control. Merely conceiving of such a shot in the Stanley Cup playoffs requires its own level of arrogance, and Tkachuk buries that needle.
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As the series returns to Boston on Wednesday with the Bruins hoping to eliminate the Panthers in five games, Tkachuk will take the ice as public enemy No. 1. He's capable of individual brilliance, but he's particularly worth watching when he thinks no one is looking.
He's dirty, chippy, and a Grade A agitator. He makes himself distressingly easy to hate for a guy whose dad grew up a Sullivan T ride away from the Garden, and the next time Ullmark tries to take a swing, maybe the refs should let him.
No one across the NHL would shed a tear, except for maybe his All-Star brother Brady, because Tkachuk's reputation for excessive tenacity precedes him, and in case it's not already abundantly clear, let me just say it:
I'd take him on my team in a second.