After indulging in turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, libations and football on Thursday, hockey fans will be given a sizable helping of Pasta and the King on Friday.

The Bruins will renew a tradition that has been running for three decades in Boston: their annual home game on Black Friday. The team began playing the day after Thanksgiving in 1986, and it became a yearly staple in 1990. This season it will feature a matchup between David Pastrnak’s Bruins and Henrik Lundqvist’s New York Rangers.

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Since the game’s inception, the Bruins are 14-7 with one tie and three overtime losses in 25 Black Friday games (Due to NHL labor disputes in 1994, 2005 and 2012, the game was not played) The contests have become fan favorites, and a national showcase opportunity for NBC and the NHL. When NBC put together its new broadcast deal in 2011, Black Friday was seen as an important opportunity to show off Boston and the NHL to a larger audience.

“We think the Boston fan base is unique to hockey and they love to go to games, any time, any day and there’s something about the day after Thanksgiving, maybe being over served turkey the day before,” said Sam Flood, executive producer and president of production for NBC and NBCSN. “It’s a perfect opportunity to work it off yelling at the opponent and cheering for the mighty Bruins.”

Bruce Cassidy is a lifelong Bruins fan and a traditionalist. To him, idea the of watching, playing, or coaching a game every Black Friday has become a unique feature of hockey in Boston.

“I love it,” Cassidy said. “It would be good if we played the same team every year.”

Even with the teams rotating, there is usually some significance to the matchup, and this season the game returns to the league’s roots with a pair of Original Six organizations facing off.

For Cassidy, the entire weekend is a sportsperson’s dream, starting on Thanksgiving Day with the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions each hosting an opponent.

“I’m a big fan of the NFL and Dallas, Detroit playing on Thanksgiving. I don’t care if (Cowboys and Lions) are good or bad, they should play,” Cassidy said. “I don’t like the late (NFL) game anymore; it’s a money grab. I’ve watched football all day. I’ve eaten turkey. I’ve had some wine and now it’s time to go to bed. But now I’ve got to watch another game? I see why they do it. Why not put another game on because people aren’t moving off the couch by then.”

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Then, after the Black Friday game, it’s on to one of college football’s biggest rivalries between Ohio State and Michigan on Saturday.

“It’s a great weekend,” Cassidy said.

This will be Torey Krug’s seventh Black Friday game. Even though hockey players typically say they’re only focused on one game at a time, the veteran defenseman admits this is a game that’s circled on the schedule for a variety of reasons.

“I really enjoy it, to be honest,” Krug said. “I like afternoon games, to begin with, but after Thanksgiving a lot of people have family in town, everyone typically has the day off and we have a rowdy crowd, which is always fun. People wake up with a Thanksgiving hangover, whether that’s from eating too much, or drinking too much, and they jump right back in. It’s a lot of fun and it’s a great tradition and we try to enjoy it.”

While fans are enjoying family, friends and the time off from work, this game means that Thanksgiving itself will always be a bit different for Bruins players, Krug explained. Even though the team has Thanksgiving off, players generally don’t indulge because of the looming matinee game.

“Typically, guys don’t want to eat too much the night before, so after a 1 o’clock game (Friday) you get out of there and go eat some leftovers and enjoy your Thanksgiving tradition,” Krug said.

Bruins defenseman Matt Grzelcyk went to plenty of Bruins games as a kid growing up in Charlestown and always enjoyed the matinee games, especially the day after Thanksgiving.

“I love it,” he said. “It’s usually some kind of rivalry game. It’s certainly fun to be part of it now. I love afternoon games, too, so to be able to play in those is fun.”

The game is back in its familiar matinee start time this year, after shifting to a night start last year.

When NBC started broadcasting the Black Friday matinee game to a national audience earlier this decade, the network decided to rotate it among other cities. That did not go over too well in Boston, because many felt the Bruins’ tradition merits the afternoon game every year.

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That has led the Bruins to playing evening games on Black Friday three times (2014, 2016 and 2018). In some of those years, the Celtics have scheduled a matinee to make for a vibrant post-holiday Garden doubleheader.

“It’s one of the brilliant things that Boston’s able to do, because they have two elite franchises in the two sports,” Flood said of the Bruins-Celtics doubleheader.

But this year the Bruins return to their familiar afternoon home, where the game was traditionally held for more than two decades.

From a production standpoint, NBC brings its top talent and crew to Boston for the game. The legendary Mike “Doc” Emrick will lead the play-by-play, while Eddie Olczyk and Brian Boucher will add analysis.

Studio hosts Kathryn Tappen, Keith Jones and Mike Milbury will also be on site, plus all the engineers, camera crew and everyone who works behind the scenes will spend a couple of days in Boston to make sure the production is as close to perfect as possible.

“If I have to miss Thanksgiving dinner with the family, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than Boston — where I lived for 11 years, and calling an Original Six game — with the hockey fans who embraced me as one of theirs when I was a young sports broadcaster,” said Tappen, who will also host a few cancer survivors at the game.

Speaking of cancer survivors, Olczyk, who beat colon cancer, will promote NBC’s Black Friday game by participate in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York.

“It’s the sacrifice of the people who work in this business,” Flood said. “They’re going to miss Thanksgiving with their families to make sure they’re in place, ready to go and ready to create the best-in-class hockey telecast on Friday at 1 o’clock. They are sacrificing the greater good for the hockey audience.”

The Bruins will sport their new alternate sweater on Friday, which is a tribute to the organization’s rich heritage, dating back to the 1940s and ’50s.

The tradition continues, and it won’t disappoint.

(Photo by John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)