How One Photo Turned Anticlimax Into Immortality

With no live sports to follow this pandemic spring, the archives are getting a workout. Great sporting moments are being broadcast to fans, many of whom were not alive at the time they occurred. So can we just say to those who didn’t live thorough the post-1967-expansion NHL, that one of the most historic hockey moments is not all it’s made out to be?

That 1970 Bobby Orr liftoff— the 50th anniversary was celebrated on Sunday— is perhaps the most overrated sporting moment in NHL history if not in other sports, too. The great picture by Ray Lussier, of course, is Orr airborne after scoring the winning goal in OT against St. Louis to clinch Boston’s first Stanley Cup since 1941.

This is no knock on Orr or the Bruins. They could only play the team given them by the NHL. But frankly, Orr deserves a better tribute to match his legendary legacy. While the picture is iconic and the Bruins win historic, IDLM has to tell you that, at the time (outside of Bruins fans), it was considered no big whoop when Orr beat Glenn Hall for the goal. Neutral fans had largely checked out of the playoffs for warm summer weather. 

We’re here to tell you that the Blues were only in the final because NHL president Clarence Campbell wanted one of the 1967 expansion teams to feel like a real hockey team. When the league doubled in size no one was fooling themselves that the league had doubled in quality. Just in quantity. But having fleeced the new owners $2 million for a franchise, the Board of Governors had to pretend the Dirty Half Dozen were not AHL teams that took a wrong turn at Rochester.

For three years— till Chicago was added to the Western Conference that fall of 1970— the winner of the expansion bracket was escalated past their true station in life to play in the Cup final. (Chicago made the 1971 Final, only to loser to Ken Dryden and the Canadiens.) To further help them achieve respectability the expansion Blues were given home-ice advantage, starting the Final in St. Louis. 

But when the magnificent No. 4 converted the feed from Derek Sanderson for the overtime goal it was the equivalent of Muhammad Ali holding up Chuck Wepner, the Bayonne Bleeder, for 15 rounds. It was a novelty, a side show, a forgone conclusion over in four short, anticlimactic games. Imagine Tiger Woods in his prime playing Happy Gilmore. You get the picture.

You could admire the Blues under soon-to-be-legendary coach Scotty Bowman. You could admire Hall and his fellow HHoF goalie partner, Jacques Plante. You could admire the pluck of Red Berenson, Frank St. Marseilles and the Plager brothers. But no one was taking them seriously as opponents for Orr & Co., even when Game 4 went to OT. The 6-1, 6-2 whippings applied by Boston in St. Louis to start the series speak to what a one-sided affair it was.

The real measure of how weak the Blues argument was for being in in the Final can be seen in the regular-season standings. The defending champion Montreal Canadiens missed the playoffs with 92 points (missing the postseason for the only time from 1949 to 1994). The Blues, despite fattening up on their expansion brothers, had 86 points— to lead the Western Conference! 

The true Stanley Cup that spring was won when the Big Bad Bruins wiped out Bobby Hull and Chicago in four straight to advance to the Final. When Phil Esposito’s  Bruins closed out Tony Esposito’s Hawks, everyone celebrated the Original Six Cup— which was still the gold standard at the time. The Bruins certainly knew it. They were probably still hung over from celebrating the Chicago wipeout when Orr tallied his famous goal two weeks later.

You could even make a case for Boston’s epic 4-2 series win over the Rangers in Round One as a more seminal moment than the St. Louis slaughter in 1970. In true old-time hockey style, the heated rivals brawled through six games (Boston’s only two losses that spring), with the first period of Game 3 at Madison Square Garden taking 91 minutes to play as the Bruins waded into the hostile Rangers to duke it out with the locals. 

courtesy: Getty Images

But time— and a famous video clip— have a way of altering history. Specifics fall away and emotions take over. So, with the passage of time and Orr’s eminence only growing with the decades, modern fans see it as a Mount Rushmore moment when Dan Kelly on CBS TV yells out, “Bobby Orr... behind the net to Sanderson to Orr! Bobby Orr! ...scores and the Boston Bruins have won the Stanley Cup!”

Which also begs the question why CBC/ HNIC still use the call by Kelly rather than the one from Danny Gallivan, who was CBC’s great broadcaster. Turns out that CBC employees were so dubious of the goal achieving legendary status that they erased the master tape to make room for other more significant items. Go figure.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). He’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he is also the best-selling author of Cap In Hand which is available on BruceDowbigginBooks.ca