Hey Doc, what happened to the NESN and TV 38 archives? Were those reels deteriorated because of time and neglect or were they simply thrown away at some point?
That was a nice time capsule BTW. I think this was filmed just before the St Louis series when they hoisted the Cup. I always forget about Bobby's intensity on the ice and his calm, self effacing demeanor off of it. He makes Jeter look look like John Rocker (!)
Oh boy, Dupes wrote something in his weekly Sunday notes some years ago that they all got destroyed somehow. I hate to think about it. It's like the demolition of the Garden.
I wonder if that Don Awrey comment "I don't think anyone knows him" was one of the things that Stephen Brunt drew on to establish in his unauthorized biography "Searching for Bobby Orr" (which was an excellent read, BTW) that there were "Orr" guys on the team and "Espo" guys (of which he wrote that Awrey -- ironically Orr's defense partner -- was was an Espo guy).
I don't really buy into it, that the famous togetherness of that team was actually just a myth. The stories about Orr and Espo are too rich, and as for the locker room quiet thing, Cheevers' book "Goaltender" (written about the 70-71 season) has this awesome passage in it when an out-of-town writer asks him why the Bruins were so dominant that season after getting only 99 points and losing out to Chicago the year before for first place.
He gets into how during intermissions Orr would stare at players who weren't pulling their weight. Even Espo talked about it, that he never wanted to see Bobby looking at him in between periods. Cheevers tells the story of Game 5 of '70 quarterfinals at home when they're down a goal heading into the third period of a 2-2 series. Orr did his usual thing carrying two sticks around the room. But this time he stopped at each guy's stall and whispered. Cheevers is sitting there thinking, "What's Bobby gonna say? He gets to me and he's like, 'You know we're going to win Cheesie, you know.'" And Cheevers realizes it and is suddenly psyched out of his mind to get back out there. The Bruins won the game and never lost another, sweeping the semis and the finals.
