Monday, April 14, 2014

1 Bobby Orr (Boston Bruins 1966-1976)

Field Of Dreams On Ice





     My earliest sports memories all have to do with hockey; my older brother playing, my father coaching, the rink in our backyard with the plywood end boards, and a bunch of grown men in plaid slacks and sideburns standing around our kitchen early on a winter’s evening, cocktails in hand, getting ready to go out. They were going to The Garden. They were going to the Bruins game.
     My dad was a Bruins season ticket holder; thirteen tickets, all in his name. He was like the popular blackjack dealer at Las Vegas Night whenever the Bruins were at home. Some of the guys on the team were friends of his, customers at his gas station. I remember watching the games on TV38; that familiar theme song—the Ventures’ “Nutty”—signaling that it was Bruins Time. Knowing my dad was there was the next best thing to watching the game with him. When the Bruins were on the road, my brothers and I would join him in front of the console TV in our living room and we’d all cheer together. Looking back, I find it funny that we were so united, all hoping for the same thing. As time went on, we shared less and less common ground. But those Bruins teams of the 70s had special appeal. And one Bruin stood out above the rest. Bobby Orr.
     They knew he was coming since before I was born. Bobby Orr signed with the Bruins in 1962, four years before his NHL debut. He won the Calder Memorial Trophy as rookie of the year in 1966-67, and over the next nine seasons, he won just about everything else. His name and number are pure hockey poetry.
     Orr...Four...Score!
     He is the subject of the most recognizable image in hockey history; mouth open, arms raised, body outstretched in air. The most famous goal ever scored. My brother Jimmy and I shared a bedroom in our basement and the first thing you saw after stepping down into it was that iconic black and white poster (there were color versions, but everybody knew they were fake), tacked into the paneling on the far wall.
     During the early 1970s, I followed Bobby Orr by watching TV, listening to the radio, collecting trading cards, and reading the programs that my father and Jimmy would bring home from the games (they were there, at The Garden, to witness that famous goal on Mother’s Day, May 10, 1970). The TV and radio experiences were made all the more memorable by the indelible voices of Fred Cusik and Johnny Peirson (TV) and Bob Wilson (radio). Their voices are forever in my head, providing the soundtrack to every great Bruins highlight of the era.  I knew all about Bobby Orr’s records and trophies and the two Stanley Cups. But nothing would compare with seeing Number 4 play in person at The Garden, a privilege I experienced several times during the 1974-75 season.
     My father knew many of the ushers and fellow patrons in the various sections where his seats were located throughout the arena. I thought it was cool that my dad was so well known in the building where the Bruins played. We’d arrive early so he could meet with some of his friends by the beer stand behind the stadium section while Jimmy and I watched the players warm up. Very few hockey players wore helmets in those days so it was easy to identify who was who without knowing all the uniform numbers. But Bobby Orr would’ve stood out to even the most uninformed hockey fan. The way he skated, the way the puck seemed to follow him around the rink and the way he made it crack when he shot it from the point. You just knew.
     And that was only during warm ups.
     It’s true the TV cameras followed the puck, and Orr had the puck a lot, but there was an electricity at The Garden during that time that could only be felt at the rink. Orr, starting out behind the Boston net, accelerating up ice, finding open space where there seems to be none. The crowd begins to hum and buzz with anticipation as he crosses center ice, then the blue line. We rise as one as Orr enters the opponent’s zone. A shot on net, a microsecond of silence, a collective holding of breath followed by a feathery flutter at the back of the net as the red light switches on. And then the eruption of glee; everybody, arms raised, smiling and screaming; my dad, my brother and I, all shouting and cheering together. My family was never big on outward celebration, but we celebrated Bobby Orr and those Bruins teams with unrestrained enthusiasm.



     For a sports fan, there’s nothing quite like having the best player in a given sport playing in your city. I’m talking about the absolute, no doubt, no argument, Best, and not just for a game or season, but for several years. In my lifetime, there have been only three instances where the best player in a particular sport was clear for all to see. In basketball you had Bill Russell in the 1960s and Michael Jordan in the 1990s (even with the mid-decade baseball sabbatical), and in hockey you had Bobby Orr of the late-60s through mid-70s. That’s it (Okay, maybe Wayne Gretzky in the 1980s, but that’s it). 

                        Warning: this will be the first of many instances in this series of essays where I will veer slightly, or not-so-slightly, off course, to support and/or justify my many claims and theories, and to attempt to show that I’m not just saying things to piss off people who might not agree with me. I do this also because I find working with, and formatting, footnotes, maddening.

     Basketball is the easiest sport in which to identify the best player because you have so few players on the court and everybody has offensive and defensive responsibilities. Football is the opposite with eleven men on offense, and eleven on defense (In the 1940s, Sammy Baugh led the NFL in passing, punting and interceptions, but I’m talking about my lifetime, and no 2-way player has been so great in the last 49 years) so football is out. In baseball and hockey you’ve got pitchers and goalies having roles so unique from everyone else’s that it’s nearly impossible to pick the best player (I’ve often wondered who’s idea it was to award wins and losses to pitchers and goalies in sports where games are won and lost by teams). Babe Ruth, a legendary pitcher and hitter, is probably baseball’s only candidate, ever (90+ years ago). Anyway, I was too young to witness Bill Russell, and Michael Jordan of the 1990s played in Chicago. So I had Bobby Orr, and despite the goalie caveat above, he was the best player in the NHL.
     Orr won 2 Art Ross Trophies as league scoring champ along with 8 Norris Trophies as top defenseman. He led the NHL in plus/minus six times, and was plus-597 for his career (second only to Larry Robinson). He won 3 Hart Trophies as regular season MVP, and 2 Conn Smythe Trophies as playoff MVP, scoring the Stanley Cup clinching goal in each of those Conn Smythe-winning seasons. He was a first-team NHL all-star eight straight seasons, and...well, you get the idea; he set a lot of records, won a lot of awards and scored a lot of big goals. But perhaps more than any on-ice accomplishment, it is the words of those who played with, and against, Bobby Orr, that tells us how great he really was:

Orr not only was the top defenseman in the game but he was considered the best player ever to put on a pair of skates. There was nothing insulting about being rated number two to such a super superstar” 
-Brad Park, 4-time runner-up to Orr for Norris Trophy.

“I know what he does to a team because I experienced it when we played together in the Canada Cup.  We were like a bunch of kids on a pond waiting for someone to come along and organize us.  When he walked in the room, we knew we would be all right.”
-Denis Potvin, teammate, 1976 Canada Cup

“He was the best player in every game; he was the best player in the tournament.”
- Bobby Clarke, teammate, 1976 Canada Cup

“I don't know that there has ever been anybody that so completely dominated a team sport."
- Ken Dryden, Montreal Canadiens Hall Of Fame goaltender

     Bobby Orr gave Boston Bruins fans a reason to be proud. It was simple: We have him, and you don’t. Even though I was a just a kid, as a fan of Bobby Orr, I puffed out my chest and walked a little taller on my way through those Garden turnstiles.



     Okay, back to 1974-75. I must have seen seven or eight games during that season. Orr won the league scoring title along with his 8th-straight Norris Trophy. He also broke his own record for goals by a defenseman with 46. Those were all great accomplishments, but, like Orr, I’m sure, I was looking forward to the playoffs, and to being there in-person.
     But it didn’t happen.
     My family was at a hotel in Disney World when we heard the short news clip. The Bruins had lost to the Chicago Black Hawks, 2 games to 1, in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The season was over. There would be no games to look forward to when we got home. I was stunned; an unhappy ten year-old in the Magic Kingdom. Imagine if I’d known that I would never see Bobby Orr play again?
     The following season, Orr would play in only ten games for the Bruins. Bracketed by two separate knee surgeries, he would score 18 points in those ten games, continuing his career pace of over a point-per-game. But the surgeries had been piling up for years (he would have twelve during his playing career) and his knees would not respond the way they used to. With his contract expiring at the end of the season, the trade rumors began to swirl. I hated hearing speculation that Bobby Orr might leave Boston.
     And then it happened.
     On June 8, 1976, Bobby Orr signed a free agent contract with the Chicago Black Hawks, the team that broke my heart when I was at Disney World the year before. It was my worst day as a sports fan. The circumstances that led to Orr leaving would not be known for several years. I blamed the team, not the player. I continued to support the Bruins, but didn’t entirely trust them. Most of the great players from the Bruins teams I grew up rooting for were gone either by trade, retirement, or by defection to the WHA. But I never thought Bobby Orr would be playing for another team in another city.
     When the truth came out about Orr’s agent, Alan Eagleson, and his duplicitous dealings, all was forgiven. Without going into too much detail, Eagleson withheld information from Orr that would’ve kept Bobby in Boston. Eagleson is now a convicted felon. He stole so much from so many. He stole from Bobby Orr, and he stole Bobby Orr from us.
     Bobby Orr is the greatest hockey player I’ve ever seen. He’s the greatest player my dad’s ever seen. Over all the years, even when we couldn’t agree on anything else, it’s the one thing we were both sure of. No tension. No debate. And that’s why I am so protective of Orr’s legacy. I know from reading his autobiography that personal achievements meant little to him, but I got annoyed in 1986 when Paul Coffey scored his 47th goal, wanted a recount in 2000 when Chris Pronger was voted winner of the Hart Trophy as MVP (the only defenseman other than Orr to be so honored), and was relieved in 2012 when Nicklas Lidström retired with only 7 Norris Trophies.
     Whenever one of Bobby Orr’s records fall, it’s like a chisel chipping away at my childhood. When I defend him, I’m defending so much more than a hockey player. I’m defending a belief. A belief that some athlete-fan relationships are transcendent. So many of my fondest childhood memories revolve around Bobby Orr and the Boston Bruins. It really was a wonderful time to be a kid in Boston, especially if you loved hockey.
     Like many sports franchises with a rich tradition, the Bruins love to honor their past. Whenever Bobby Orr is called upon for a ceremonial puck drop, you can bet I’ll be watching with a tight chest and eyes a little blurry with nostalgia (that’s a tough-guy way of admitting that I may be crying). Every time Orr walks from the shadows of that tunnel into the bright lights of the arena, it’s like he’s one of the ghosts from Field Of Dreams coming out of the cornfield. I can’t explain it any more than I can explain my reaction to the end of that movie. All I know is that it feels the same; something to do with the complicated narrative between fathers and sons that twists grown men into emotional pretzels.



     Recently, I talked with my dad, who still watches every Bruins game on TV, about why he gave up all of his Bruins season tickets back in the late 1970s.
     “Was it because Orr left?” I asked.
     He paused, as if looking into the past, “Nobody wanted to go anymore.”
     I took that as a “Yes.”
     Gordie Howe once said of Bobby Orr, "Losing Bobby was the greatest blow the National Hockey League has ever suffered"
     We’re lucky here in Boston, though, because we never really lost him.
     Bobby Orr. He’s a part of my past. He reminds me of all that once was good. And he’s the greatest sports hero of my lifetime.



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