To start the Stanley Cup Finals, Chiarelli watched a story unfold that was all too similar to what he experienced in college.

As Boston fell behind 0-2, his chance at the long-sought after trophy appeared to be slipping.

But the resilient Bruins battled back, winning three of the next four games to take the series to a deciding Game 7. In the final moments of Game 7 with Boston up 4-0, it became clear that he had finally reached the pinnacle of his sport. He had done it.

“I just remember going down to the ice and it didn’t seem real,” Chiarelli recalled. “You could just see the emotion all around, the release, the unconditional joy. It’s a feeling I’ve never felt before.”

Friends and former teammates saw a man who had finally achieved his ultimate goal.

“In conversations with him, you could just tell the sense of satisfaction in terms of accomplishing the goal that was so hard to reach,” MacDonald said.

“That was a great way to sort of bring it all together from the first time I met him freshman year just before the first tryout... Less than 25 years later, and he’s lifting the Stanley Cup,” Carney said.

—Staff writer Jacob D. H. Feldman can be reached at jacobfeldman@college.harvard.edu.