PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS.
Boston Red Sox’s David Ortiz (34) greets former Boston Bruins Bobby Orr, center, as former Bruins’ Ray Bourque, right, looks on during ceremonies honoring Ortiz before a baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays in Boston, Saturday, Oct. 1, 2016.
By Steve Krause
Fifty years ago, Boston was introduced to an athlete who revolutionized his sport. He took the town by storm and made his team, and everyone associated with it, local royalty.
You want to talk about David Ortiz? He was every bit as clutch, maybe even moreso. How about Tom Brady? Girls swooned over this guy, too, but instead of marrying a model, this guy — ever so laid back and humble — just married Peggy. Larry Bird? No. 33 once confessed that during the National Anthem, he looked up into the old Boston Garden rafters where No. 4 hung and drew inspiration from it, and from him.
Could it really be 50 years since Robert Gordon Orr played his first game at the Boston Garden?
These days, we celebrate numbers a little too often. The Red Sox are especially adept at this. There’s the 40th anniversary of this; the 30th anniversary of that. They put on a good show, trot out all the legends, and, with any luck, fill Fenway Park one more time. Next year, we’ll observe the 50th anniversary of “The Impossible Dream” season — which is something worthy of remembering, especially for those long-suffering fans of the 50s and early 60s who, year after year, watched other athletes, from other towns (usually the Yankees), pouring champagne on everyone’s heads.
Marking the 50th anniversary of Orr’s first game at the Garden might not stack up as anything significant. Nobody observed the anniversary of Carl Yastrzemski’s first game with the Red Sox, or even Ted Williams’. But believe me, Orr was so much different than any other Boston athlete — even the likes of Bird and Brady.
At 12, he was anointed the savior of a franchise that was an NHL bottom-feeder for seven years. By the time he was 18, he could have probably walked across the Hudson Bay on the way down here. Boston Globe sportswriter Tom Fitzgerald felt it necessary to warn fans against putting too much pressure on him with high expectations. But Orr put enough on himself, and in the course of his all-too-brief career, about the only person he probably let down was R.G. Orr. He certainly held up his part of the bargain as far as everyone else was concerned.
There are no words to describe Orr’s impact on Boston and the Bruins. Suffice it to say the Bruins of that era owned the town like no other franchise in the city’s history. Forget about the 2004 Red Sox. Forget about the Patriots of the last decade. And forget about the Larry Bird Celtics. Bobby Orr and the Big Bad Bruins ruled. And they took no prisoners, neither around the National Hockey League or in local drinking and eating establishments. They played hard, and partied harder. All except Orr, who, believe it or not, was much more sedate than the rest of them. Prior to Orr’s debut in Boston, there was no such thing as puck-moving defenseman. Orr changed all that with his rink-long rushes. How many times, especially early in his career before the knee injuries started mounting up, did he go end-to-end, circle the opposing net, and stuff a shot past some befuddled goalie? He won the NHL scoring title in 1970 with 120 points. Nobody had ever done that before.
Orr led the Bruins to two Stanley Cups, one in 1970 and the other in ‘72, and he probably could have had two more had it not been for the outrageously unconscious goaltending of Ken Dryden of the Montreal Canadiens (‘71) and Bernie Parent of the Philadelphia Flyers (‘74).
Orr had one thing going against him: he was a little too fearless. He flew around the ice at full speed, which meant that in the off-chance someone caught him, the collisions were violent, and — ultimately — harmful. First it was one knee, and then it was the other knee. As a young co-op student for United Press International, I covered the Bruins and, as one colleague put it, Orr’s knees had so many scars they looked like road maps. Even by today’s standards, with advancements in surgical procedures that can make repairing an ACL almost routine, Orr probably wouldn’t have had a long career.
He was a supernova. His career lasted only 10 years, and after 1972 he was a shell of his former self, the knee surgeries having taken too much of a toll.
He spent the last year of his career with the Chicago Blackhawks, something that never should have happened regardless of how dinged up he was. His erstwhile friend, Alan Eagleson, betrayed him then, as he would so many times after that.
Orr still lives in Boston, where he continues to be one of his era’s best ambassadors even as he shuns the limelight. He is, and always was, the ultimate role model for everyone who comes in contact with him.
Was he the NHL’s GOAT? In my opinion, yes. The only thing either Gordie Howe or Wayne Gretzky may have over him is longevity. But in terms of overall skill and impact on the game itself, Orr had it over both. Hands down.