Wayne Cashman

Hockey Digest, March, 2001 by Wayne Cashman, Chuck O'Donnell

The former Boston star recalls the night that Bobby Orr flew through the air and the Bruins flew to the Cup

I THINK EVERYBODY WHO HAS ever been to New England has seen the photo of Bobby Orr flying through the air in Boston Garden after scoring the Stanley Cup-clinching goal in 1970. You know the one: puck in the net, red light on, arms straight out.

As a youngster growing up in Canada, I dreamed of the Stanley Cup. When I see that picture, all those dreams and memories come back as if it were yesterday. It's the one thing in my career that, when I think about it, seems like it happened yesterday.

When I see that photo, I think of Orr. I played junior hockey with him, so I knew what he could do. I knew he was going to make a change, but you never knew the level of his impact. Everyone says they knew what kind of effect he was going to have on the game. I say, no. I just knew he was going to be a tremendous player and that he was going to be able to put up the same humors as a forward.

Orr was tremendous even when we were playing in Oshawa, at the age of 14. Even then, we won a playoff game 11-0, and he set up our first 10 goals.

Orr was really leading the Bruins out of the wilderness. At one point, the team had struggled for several years--and had not won the Cup for 29 years. Milt Schmidt and other executives got together and mapped out how they were going to rebuild the team. They wanted to build from within.

In those days, teams sponsored players as far back as juniors. There was no draft. A club had its own minor league teams and its own junior teams in Canada--and that's where it trained its players. The Bruins developed a very good farm system. Bruins-sponsored teams won championships at the junior level, the American League level, and the Central League level. Everyone knew it was just a matter of time before some of these players worked their way up to the NHL. Fortunately for the Bruins, there were eight or 10 of them who made the leap over a short period of time. Besides Orr and myself, there was Derek Sanderson, Ed Westfall, Rick Smith, Dallas Smith, Don Awrey, Jim Lorentz, Don Marcotte, and Eddie Johnston, to name a few, who came through the system together.

The organization also made some good deals, acquiring guys such as Johnny Bucyk and Johnny "Pie" McKenzie. Then they made the big trade with the Chicago Blackhawks to get Kenny Hodge, Phil Esposito, and Fred Stanfield. That just topped it all off.

I teamed on a line with Esposito and Hodge. We were the leading scoring line in the league for two or three consecutive years. It was fun. We complemented each other well. We each knew what our job on the line was. Phil was the goal scorer. Ken was a pretty good goal scorer, too, but our jobs were to get the puck to Phil.

Of course, it never hurt to have Orr on the ice. He was the best player in the world at that time. He was such a good offensive player that we'd always be coming up the ice with a four-man rush. Every night, Orr made it fun to play.

By the 1969-70 season, we knew we had a Cup contender. But we also knew we were going to have to go through some tough competition. After the 1967 expansion, the NHL put the new teams in the West Division and the established teams in the East. They had to give the expansion teams a chance, but it made for tough going for the rest of us. That year, we got past the New York Rangers and the Chicago Blackhawks to get to the Finals, where we were expected to defeat the St. Louis Blues. You know, we didn't care who were playing--it was just exciting to be in the Finals.

The Blues obviously weren't an established team, but they had some good players. Their goalies, Jacques Plante Glenn Hall, had a lot of experience. Red Berenson was a great acquisition for them, as were Jim Roberts, Phil Goyette, and the Plager brothers.

But with Orr leading the way, we easily took the first three games. That set up Game 4 at the Garden--the game I'll never forget.

The Blues fought hard despite being in a deep hole, pushing Game 4 into overtime. Before the overtime, our coach, Harry Sinden, told us our line was next. But right as we got to the door, Sinden changed his mind and said: "Derek, your line. Go quickly and I'll come back with Phil's line."

We never got onto the ice. Forty seconds into overtime, the puck ended up behind the Blues' net, and Sanderson fed it to Orr. Even on that play, you could see how brilliant Orr was. He knew when to move in from the point and where to find a little room in front of the net. He tapped the puck in and Noel Picard tripped him. He went flying, and we all came onto the ice and jumped on him.

That may have been the most memorable goal Orr ever scored, but over the years he changed the game forever. They used to take the little kids who couldn't skate and put them back on defense. Orr changed that. Defense-men used to score 20 points a season. One year, Orr ended up with 146. After him, teams started putting their best players on defense so they could get more ice time out of them. Orr revolutionized the whole sport.