Bruins Classics GDT Remembering May 10 1970 - 1 PM 98.5 WBZ-FM - 8 PM NHL Network (US), SN (Canada)

1970Bruins

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May 18, 2018
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May 10 will be the 50th anniversary of the Bruins winning the Stanley Cup, their first such victory since 1941. This post – sort of a long read, I suppose – is my best recollection of those times.

The 69-70 Bruins

By the start of the 69-70 season, the Bruins were by far the most popular sports team in town: Bobby Orr was in his prime. Esposito, Ken Hodge, and Fred Stanfield had arrived the year before in the Greatest Trade of All Time. Derek Sanderson and Johnny McKenzie provided both goals and attitude. Gerry Cheevers was usually solid in goal (which couldn’t always be said for his backup Eddie Johnston). John Bucyk on left wing was a veteran, a solid goal scorer ever since the old Uke line with Vic Stasiuk and Bronco Horvath in the 50s. And then there was Teddy Green, the face of the Bruins until the emergence of Orr and Esposito and as rugged a defenseman as any. Green was lost for the season when he was felled by Wayne Maki who viciously swung his stick and connected with Green’s in a pre-season fight. But even without Green, the Bruins were as tough as any team in the league.

The previous season had been the most exciting season in the previous dozen years – admittedly not a high bar to clear as the Bs had finished out of the playoffs for 9 years running in the early/mid 60s. The 68-69 B’s lost to the Canadiens in the playoffs 4 games to 2, in one of the most thrilling series ever, when the magnificent Jean Béliveau scored in double overtime at the Garden. So when 69-70 began, Bruins fans had great hopes, even after Green went down.

The regular season was both exhilarating and frustrating. At the time, the NHL had 2 divisions – one division contained the “original 6” teams [okay, they weren’t the original 6, but that’s a different discussion], and the other had the 6 expansion teams (Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, LA, St Louis, Oakland, Minnesota), none of whom were nearly as good as even the worst original-6 team. The Bruins consistently won at home that year against everybody, did reasonably well against the expansion teams on the road, but couldn’t win at all on the road against teams in their division. Toronto was terrible that year, but the rest of the teams in the Bruins’ division were all very close to each other. Going in to the final day of the regular season, Boston and Chicago were tied for 1st place, with Chicago getting the tiebreaker. The Bruins played Toronto and beat them handily on the final Sunday, and Chicago were playing at home against the Canadiens. When Chicago beat the Habs, the Hawks clinched 1st place, and the Bruins, tied with Chicago at 99 points, were 2nd. Bruins fans ruefully thought back to a Sunday afternoon game at the Garden in January. Referee Bill Friday ruled that a shot (by Cliff Koroll, IIRC) went in the net and came right back out, but neither the goal judge nor any of the fans saw it (and there was no replay). The final score was 1-0 Chicago: had the so-called ‘goal’ not been given, there would have been no tie with Chicago at the end of the regular season, and the Bruins would have finished in first.
The tickets

Henry, Bill, Joan, Lee and I went to every single home game for 5 years, starting somewhere in 68-69. Henry and I were gofers at a civil engineering company, and Bill worked there as a Northeastern co-op. Joanie was Bill’s girlfriend, Lee had been Henry’s best friend since forever. We didn’t have season tickets, but we did the long waits (and some overnights) at North Station when tickets went on sale. And we took at least 1 trip a year to Montreal to see the B’s play at the Forum. Omigod, those were amazing times.

We were only interested in standing room tickets. They didn’t sell standing room as such, but there were hundreds of seats behind a post, or in the back of the grandstand where the balcony cut off your view, or anywhere in the 2nd balcony that wasn’t 1st or 2nd row. (In the 2nd balcony, people in the 1st row sat, people in the 2nd row had to stand to see over the 1st row, and people in the 3rd and 4th rows had to find spaces between the standees in row 2.)

There were four spots in the Garden that were great for standing: the 4 corners of the 1st balcony. In each corner was a railing where 6 or 7 (8 if you squeeze) people could stand. The people in front of you, in the last row of the balcony, were 2 steps below us, so we had a clear view of the ice even when they stood up. We would stand at the railing behind Section 104 – at the end where the Bruins shot in the 1st and 3rd periods. A long way up, but much closer than the last rows of new stadiums. And the corners are great viewpoints for watching hockey.

For the 1970 playoffs, I got lucky. A few days before the end of the regular season, I was reading the Globe on the subway to work and saw a 1-sentence blurb in the “Sports Notes” column where they put miscellaneous junk: “Bruins playoff tickets for the 1st 7 games go on sale at 8:00 today at the North Station Box Office.” Holy shit. They decided to put the tickets on sale with virtually no notice – the only mention was 1 sentence in the Globe, and they’re opening the Box Office 2 hours early. There was no time to get in touch with the others – we didn’t have pagers then, let alone cell phones – I just went straight to North Station. The line was relatively short, and soon after I got there Billy showed up as well. They were limiting each person to 8 (I think) tickets, but you could get back in line again. It took Bill and me maybe 3 trips through the line to get enough for the gang, plus a few extras, for all 7 games.
The Playoffs

The playoff format was slightly different then: In the first round in each division, the 1st place team (Chicago) played the 3rd-place team (Detroit), and 2nd (Boston) played 4th (NY). As the playoffs got underway, we fans were hopeful, but we all knew well that the team had trouble on the road all season. And that the BlackHawks were especially tough at home and would have the extra home game.

But first we had to make it past the Rangers. The Rangers were a tough team led by the Hadfield-Ratelle-Gilbert line, and a strong Walt Tkachuk centering another line. Brad Park led the defense (Bruins fans thought he was a wuss until he put on a B’s sweater a couple of years later), and Ed Giacomin was steady(ish) in goal. The opening game was music to fans’ eyes and ears, an 8-2 blowout, the Garden as rollicking as it had ever been. The Bruins took care of business in the second game as well. But when the series moved to Madison Sq Garden for games 3 and 4, the road troubles had not gone away: the Bruins lost both games, and the series was tied at 2. Game 5 at home was the most important game the Bruins were to play that season. Instead of the open, high-flying game that they’d played all season, it seemed that they magically switched to Stanley Cup-style play: tight play, skating the wings, taking opportunities when they come, and shutting down the opponents. Not the style we were used to seeing in Garden. And they beat the Rangers 3-2. Game 6 in New York was no contest (4-1 B’s) – the Bruins’ performance in Game 5 really finished off the Rangers. To paraphrase a different coach from a different time, it was on to Chicago.

Tony Esposito won the Vezina Trophy in 69-70, and he was outstanding in goal for Chicago. Stan Mikita and of course Bobby Hull led the team in offense, and Chicago Stadium was a bear of a place to play – the Bruins had won exactly 0 games there during the season. After coming so close the year before, B’s fans had that all-too-familiar feeling of Hope shadowed by Doom. And then something magical, unexpected, glorious, impossible, amazing, stupendous happened. The Boston Bruins went into Chicago in the first game and dominated the Hawks, beat ‘em 6-3. They played as they had in the last 2 games against the Rangers – it was as if a switch had been turned on, and the team recognized that they could play just as well on the road as in the Garden. And then, to the amazement of everyone, they beat the BlackHawks again in the second game, 4-1. The games weren’t even close. The Big, Bad Bruins had become the Big, Bad, Dominant Bruins. Chicago put up a token fight in the 2 games in Boston, but the Bruins won them both handily. Not one sane person would have foreseen the Bruins sweeping Chicago, but there it was. And the Bruins were in the Stanley Cup finals, looking to end the drought since their last win in 1941.

St Louis had been the best of the expansion teams, but they still sucked compared to any of the original 6 teams, so the outcome did not look to be in doubt. Because St Louis finished 1st in their division and Boston 2nd in theirs, St Louis had the first two games at home (and the 7th at home, in the very unlikely event that things got that far).

St Louis was no match for Boston. In Game 1, Scotty Bowman, the St Louis coach, tried double-teaming Bobby Orr, which left players like Bucyk and Espo open much of the time. The Bruins won a pair of laughers at the old St Louis Arena, a decrepit old barn, 6-0 and 6-1, then took the 3rd game at the Garden 4-1. Winning the Cup was now a formality (in 1970, a 2004 Red Sox-Yankees series had not been imagined). But if the Bruins were to lose Game 4, the next game would be in St Louis, an anticlimactic place for a Stanley Cup win.
May 10th

Game 4 was Mother’s Day, Sunday May 10, at 2pm. National television on CBS (Dan Kelly announcing), and local radio with Fred Cusick and Johnny Peirson. And was it ever a hot day – 90 degrees, crazy hot for early May back then. The five of us left the Dew Drop Inn, our usual pre-game haunt on Merrimac St, around 12:30 to be 1st in line at the door, like always, to race up the 99 steps to our standing spot. But there were 2 groups of 2 in front of us in line – turned out to be no problem, as they didn’t know the right route to Section 104 and showed up well after we’d claimed our spot. The mood was unlike anything I’ve ever known, before or since – not really the nervous type of mood you typically get before a crucial game, but much more of an expectant/exuberant mood waiting to celebrate, because it just didn’t seem remotely possible that the Bruins wouldn’t win today. And everyone had forgotten about that 1-0 loss in January to the BlackHawks: if the Bruins had finished 1st in their division, Game 4 would have been in St Louis, not Boston.

The Garden was packed, of course. Lots more people standing than usual – no electronic tickets in those days, and it wasn’t particularly difficult to get in a game by slipping the ticket-taker a $10 or a $20. The press boxes were packed, and you could pick out some familiar faces – Gordie Howe was in a blue dress shirt and tie in the CBS booth, Réné Le Cavalier was doing the French-language CBC broadcast. Inside the Garden it was broiling, especially up at the top where we stood. The chief usher (who by this time knew us pretty well) even opened the fire escape doors just behind us once the game got going, in a mostly-futile attempt to get some air circulating.

I don’t remember too many details of the game, except that the Bruins were obviously very tense, and the Blues were playing as if they had nothing to lose. It was a close game, no one ahead by more than a goal, and then St Louis took a 3-2 lead either late in the 2nd or early in the 3rd. Which, I very much assure you, changed the mood from expectant/exuberant to nail-bitingly-tense. 10 minutes left in the 3rd, Bruins down a goal and skating like crazy, Blues defending brilliantly, clock winding down. A roar every time Orr touches the puck. About 5 or 6 minutes left in the game, Bucyk in his usual place just to the left of the crease. Somebody passes to him, I don’t remember who, I just remember #9 poking it in and raising his stick, right below where we’re standing, and the game is tied. An eruption for the ages from the crowd. The game wasn’t over yet, but no one sensed that the Blues had anything left. They’d given it their best shot.

None of us behind Section 104 saw the overtime goal, Orr’s goal, just 40 seconds into the overtime. It was at the far end of the rink, a hazy miasma having settled in the Garden (smoking was still allowed). There was just a celebratory din, a din I not ever to be forgotten. The Cup came onto the ice, Bucyk held it up high, all the while trying to skate through the zillion people who’d managed to come on to the ice. Chants for Teddy Green to lift the cup. The celebration in the Garden went on and on and on til we eventually headed to the street. At one point, maybe I’d gotten a little too exuberant, and a haggard-looking guy comes up to me and says to keep it cool. A plainclothes cop. Eventually back to the Dew Drop, then some Chinese food, and home very, very late.
Aftermath

The next day was the parade down Washington St. Players and coaches in convertibles, throngs of fans I don’t know how-many deep. I yelled to Harry Sinden “who won the Smythe?” as he passed by, he answered “Bobby.” The latter passed by a few cars later, and I remember an extremely good-looking 20-ish woman trying to jump from the sidewalk into his lap. Like everyone else on the team, he looked totally wasted.
Two or three days later, when the afterglow was still a fresh memory, Henry (my fellow gofer) and I had to take some snapshots of some plans at City Hall, and we decided to make a detour on the way back, via the Garden. For no particular reason we wandered over to the Bruins office at 150 Causeway St. The Bruins office looked like any other office -- a lobby plus a hallway that I imagine led to a bunch of individual offices – except for one crucial element. The Stanley Cup was just sitting there, on a table in front of some pictures of old Bruins, along with a rent-a-guard, sitting in a chair, not much interested in anything that Henry or I did, So we each posed in front of the Cup, taking photos of each other. And that’s how my avatar photo came to be.

It seemed like the beginning of a dynasty. The next year, the Bruins had one of the most dominant teams I’ve ever seen in any sport – maybe even more so than the 2007 Patriots -- absolutely obliterating team and individual records for scoring. Then they ran into Ken Dryden and the Canadiens in the quarter-finals (along with new coach Ton Johnson blunderingly putting Eddie Johnston in goal for game 2), and they were out of the 70-71 Cup. They were still great, though not as dominant, the following year and did win the Cup, but even that year they missed out on clinching at the Garden when they lost Game 5 of the Finals at home to the Rangers. By the following year, the WHA and Orr’s knees had laid waste to the dynasty that never was.
 

Gordoff

Formerly: Strafer
Jan 18, 2003
24,634
24,372
The Hub
May 10 will be the 50th anniversary of the Bruins winning the Stanley Cup, their first such victory since 1941. This post – sort of a long read, I suppose – is my best recollection of those times.

The 69-70 Bruins

By the start of the 69-70 season, the Bruins were by far the most popular sports team in town: Bobby Orr was in his prime. Esposito, Ken Hodge, and Fred Stanfield had arrived the year before in the Greatest Trade of All Time. Derek Sanderson and Johnny McKenzie provided both goals and attitude. Gerry Cheevers was usually solid in goal (which couldn’t always be said for his backup Eddie Johnston). John Bucyk on left wing was a veteran, a solid goal scorer ever since the old Uke line with Vic Stasiuk and Bronco Horvath in the 50s. And then there was Teddy Green, the face of the Bruins until the emergence of Orr and Esposito and as rugged a defenseman as any. Green was lost for the season when he was felled by Wayne Maki who viciously swung his stick and connected with Green’s in a pre-season fight. But even without Green, the Bruins were as tough as any team in the league.

The previous season had been the most exciting season in the previous dozen years – admittedly not a high bar to clear as the Bs had finished out of the playoffs for 9 years running in the early/mid 60s. The 68-69 B’s lost to the Canadiens in the playoffs 4 games to 2, in one of the most thrilling series ever, when the magnificent Jean Béliveau scored in double overtime at the Garden. So when 69-70 began, Bruins fans had great hopes, even after Green went down.

The regular season was both exhilarating and frustrating. At the time, the NHL had 2 divisions – one division contained the “original 6” teams [okay, they weren’t the original 6, but that’s a different discussion], and the other had the 6 expansion teams (Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, LA, St Louis, Oakland, Minnesota), none of whom were nearly as good as even the worst original-6 team. The Bruins consistently won at home that year against everybody, did reasonably well against the expansion teams on the road, but couldn’t win at all on the road against teams in their division. Toronto was terrible that year, but the rest of the teams in the Bruins’ division were all very close to each other. Going in to the final day of the regular season, Boston and Chicago were tied for 1st place, with Chicago getting the tiebreaker. The Bruins played Toronto and beat them handily on the final Sunday, and Chicago were playing at home against the Canadiens. When Chicago beat the Habs, the Hawks clinched 1st place, and the Bruins, tied with Chicago at 99 points, were 2nd. Bruins fans ruefully thought back to a Sunday afternoon game at the Garden in January. Referee Bill Friday ruled that a shot (by Cliff Koroll, IIRC) went in the net and came right back out, but neither the goal judge nor any of the fans saw it (and there was no replay). The final score was 1-0 Chicago: had the so-called ‘goal’ not been given, there would have been no tie with Chicago at the end of the regular season, and the Bruins would have finished in first.
The tickets

Henry, Bill, Joan, Lee and I went to every single home game for 5 years, starting somewhere in 68-69. Henry and I were gofers at a civil engineering company, and Bill worked there as a Northeastern co-op. Joanie was Bill’s girlfriend, Lee had been Henry’s best friend since forever. We didn’t have season tickets, but we did the long waits (and some overnights) at North Station when tickets went on sale. And we took at least 1 trip a year to Montreal to see the B’s play at the Forum. Omigod, those were amazing times.

We were only interested in standing room tickets. They didn’t sell standing room as such, but there were hundreds of seats behind a post, or in the back of the grandstand where the balcony cut off your view, or anywhere in the 2nd balcony that wasn’t 1st or 2nd row. (In the 2nd balcony, people in the 1st row sat, people in the 2nd row had to stand to see over the 1st row, and people in the 3rd and 4th rows had to find spaces between the standees in row 2.)

There were four spots in the Garden that were great for standing: the 4 corners of the 1st balcony. In each corner was a railing where 6 or 7 (8 if you squeeze) people could stand. The people in front of you, in the last row of the balcony, were 2 steps below us, so we had a clear view of the ice even when they stood up. We would stand at the railing behind Section 104 – at the end where the Bruins shot in the 1st and 3rd periods. A long way up, but much closer than the last rows of new stadiums. And the corners are great viewpoints for watching hockey.

For the 1970 playoffs, I got lucky. A few days before the end of the regular season, I was reading the Globe on the subway to work and saw a 1-sentence blurb in the “Sports Notes” column where they put miscellaneous junk: “Bruins playoff tickets for the 1st 7 games go on sale at 8:00 today at the North Station Box Office.” Holy shit. They decided to put the tickets on sale with virtually no notice – the only mention was 1 sentence in the Globe, and they’re opening the Box Office 2 hours early. There was no time to get in touch with the others – we didn’t have pagers then, let alone cell phones – I just went straight to North Station. The line was relatively short, and soon after I got there Billy showed up as well. They were limiting each person to 8 (I think) tickets, but you could get back in line again. It took Bill and me maybe 3 trips through the line to get enough for the gang, plus a few extras, for all 7 games.
The Playoffs

The playoff format was slightly different then: In the first round in each division, the 1st place team (Chicago) played the 3rd-place team (Detroit), and 2nd (Boston) played 4th (NY). As the playoffs got underway, we fans were hopeful, but we all knew well that the team had trouble on the road all season. And that the BlackHawks were especially tough at home and would have the extra home game.

But first we had to make it past the Rangers. The Rangers were a tough team led by the Hadfield-Ratelle-Gilbert line, and a strong Walt Tkachuk centering another line. Brad Park led the defense (Bruins fans thought he was a wuss until he put on a B’s sweater a couple of years later), and Ed Giacomin was steady(ish) in goal. The opening game was music to fans’ eyes and ears, an 8-2 blowout, the Garden as rollicking as it had ever been. The Bruins took care of business in the second game as well. But when the series moved to Madison Sq Garden for games 3 and 4, the road troubles had not gone away: the Bruins lost both games, and the series was tied at 2. Game 5 at home was the most important game the Bruins were to play that season. Instead of the open, high-flying game that they’d played all season, it seemed that they magically switched to Stanley Cup-style play: tight play, skating the wings, taking opportunities when they come, and shutting down the opponents. Not the style we were used to seeing in Garden. And they beat the Rangers 3-2. Game 6 in New York was no contest (4-1 B’s) – the Bruins’ performance in Game 5 really finished off the Rangers. To paraphrase a different coach from a different time, it was on to Chicago.

Tony Esposito won the Vezina Trophy in 69-70, and he was outstanding in goal for Chicago. Stan Mikita and of course Bobby Hull led the team in offense, and Chicago Stadium was a bear of a place to play – the Bruins had won exactly 0 games there during the season. After coming so close the year before, B’s fans had that all-too-familiar feeling of Hope shadowed by Doom. And then something magical, unexpected, glorious, impossible, amazing, stupendous happened. The Boston Bruins went into Chicago in the first game and dominated the Hawks, beat ‘em 6-3. They played as they had in the last 2 games against the Rangers – it was as if a switch had been turned on, and the team recognized that they could play just as well on the road as in the Garden. And then, to the amazement of everyone, they beat the BlackHawks again in the second game, 4-1. The games weren’t even close. The Big, Bad Bruins had become the Big, Bad, Dominant Bruins. Chicago put up a token fight in the 2 games in Boston, but the Bruins won them both handily. Not one sane person would have foreseen the Bruins sweeping Chicago, but there it was. And the Bruins were in the Stanley Cup finals, looking to end the drought since their last win in 1941.

St Louis had been the best of the expansion teams, but they still sucked compared to any of the original 6 teams, so the outcome did not look to be in doubt. Because St Louis finished 1st in their division and Boston 2nd in theirs, St Louis had the first two games at home (and the 7th at home, in the very unlikely event that things got that far).

St Louis was no match for Boston. In Game 1, Scotty Bowman, the St Louis coach, tried double-teaming Bobby Orr, which left players like Bucyk and Espo open much of the time. The Bruins won a pair of laughers at the old St Louis Arena, a decrepit old barn, 6-0 and 6-1, then took the 3rd game at the Garden 4-1. Winning the Cup was now a formality (in 1970, a 2004 Red Sox-Yankees series had not been imagined). But if the Bruins were to lose Game 4, the next game would be in St Louis, an anticlimactic place for a Stanley Cup win.
May 10th

Game 4 was Mother’s Day, Sunday May 10, at 2pm. National television on CBS (Dan Kelly announcing), and local radio with Fred Cusick and Johnny Peirson. And was it ever a hot day – 90 degrees, crazy hot for early May back then. The five of us left the Dew Drop Inn, our usual pre-game haunt on Merrimac St, around 12:30 to be 1st in line at the door, like always, to race up the 99 steps to our standing spot. But there were 2 groups of 2 in front of us in line – turned out to be no problem, as they didn’t know the right route to Section 104 and showed up well after we’d claimed our spot. The mood was unlike anything I’ve ever known, before or since – not really the nervous type of mood you typically get before a crucial game, but much more of an expectant/exuberant mood waiting to celebrate, because it just didn’t seem remotely possible that the Bruins wouldn’t win today. And everyone had forgotten about that 1-0 loss in January to the BlackHawks: if the Bruins had finished 1st in their division, Game 4 would have been in St Louis, not Boston.

The Garden was packed, of course. Lots more people standing than usual – no electronic tickets in those days, and it wasn’t particularly difficult to get in a game by slipping the ticket-taker a $10 or a $20. The press boxes were packed, and you could pick out some familiar faces – Gordie Howe was in a blue dress shirt and tie in the CBS booth, Réné Le Cavalier was doing the French-language CBC broadcast. Inside the Garden it was broiling, especially up at the top where we stood. The chief usher (who by this time knew us pretty well) even opened the fire escape doors just behind us once the game got going, in a mostly-futile attempt to get some air circulating.

I don’t remember too many details of the game, except that the Bruins were obviously very tense, and the Blues were playing as if they had nothing to lose. It was a close game, no one ahead by more than a goal, and then St Louis took a 3-2 lead either late in the 2nd or early in the 3rd. Which, I very much assure you, changed the mood from expectant/exuberant to nail-bitingly-tense. 10 minutes left in the 3rd, Bruins down a goal and skating like crazy, Blues defending brilliantly, clock winding down. A roar every time Orr touches the puck. About 5 or 6 minutes left in the game, Bucyk in his usual place just to the left of the crease. Somebody passes to him, I don’t remember who, I just remember #9 poking it in and raising his stick, right below where we’re standing, and the game is tied. An eruption for the ages from the crowd. The game wasn’t over yet, but no one sensed that the Blues had anything left. They’d given it their best shot.

None of us behind Section 104 saw the overtime goal, Orr’s goal, just 40 seconds into the overtime. It was at the far end of the rink, a hazy miasma having settled in the Garden (smoking was still allowed). There was just a celebratory din, a din I not ever to be forgotten. The Cup came onto the ice, Bucyk held it up high, all the while trying to skate through the zillion people who’d managed to come on to the ice. Chants for Teddy Green to lift the cup. The celebration in the Garden went on and on and on til we eventually headed to the street. At one point, maybe I’d gotten a little too exuberant, and a haggard-looking guy comes up to me and says to keep it cool. A plainclothes cop. Eventually back to the Dew Drop, then some Chinese food, and home very, very late.
Aftermath

The next day was the parade down Washington St. Players and coaches in convertibles, throngs of fans I don’t know how-many deep. I yelled to Harry Sinden “who won the Smythe?” as he passed by, he answered “Bobby.” The latter passed by a few cars later, and I remember an extremely good-looking 20-ish woman trying to jump from the sidewalk into his lap. Like everyone else on the team, he looked totally wasted.
Two or three days later, when the afterglow was still a fresh memory, Henry (my fellow gofer) and I had to take some snapshots of some plans at City Hall, and we decided to make a detour on the way back, via the Garden. For no particular reason we wandered over to the Bruins office at 150 Causeway St. The Bruins office looked like any other office -- a lobby plus a hallway that I imagine led to a bunch of individual offices – except for one crucial element. The Stanley Cup was just sitting there, on a table in front of some pictures of old Bruins, along with a rent-a-guard, sitting in a chair, not much interested in anything that Henry or I did, So we each posed in front of the Cup, taking photos of each other. And that’s how my avatar photo came to be.

It seemed like the beginning of a dynasty. The next year, the Bruins had one of the most dominant teams I’ve ever seen in any sport – maybe even more so than the 2007 Patriots -- absolutely obliterating team and individual records for scoring. Then they ran into Ken Dryden and the Canadiens in the quarter-finals (along with new coach Ton Johnson blunderingly putting Eddie Johnston in goal for game 2), and they were out of the 70-71 Cup. They were still great, though not as dominant, the following year and did win the Cup, but even that year they missed out on clinching at the Garden when they lost Game 5 of the Finals at home to the Rangers. By the following year, the WHA and Orr’s knees had laid waste to the dynasty that never was.
Welcome aboard!
Fantastic recollections of golden memories. Thank you for sharing them with us.
 

Babajingo

Registered User
IMG_0045.jpg
Taken by my parents who were at both Stanley Cups series. I believe this is the 69-70 celebration. Few notes:
- I always forget how intimate the garden was. Sure there were some obstructed views but nothing beat how close the fans were to the action
- Trying to figure out the banner in the top right. something like "Play ????? in ladybing Boston"
- How small the ice surface is
 
Last edited by a moderator:

aguineapig

Guest
Thank You for the montage of magical memories. I had a bunch of stuff from that era. Sadly it was all left behind when I lived life like a day of destruction. But the memories remain forever, tucked into a corner of the past to be brought out when a smile is needed to get through all the heartache. It's funny what we remember from the past. I remember those flat, white W.C. Fields style hats they had in the locker room for the celebration. Harry had one on, Espo did too. Don Earle was doing an interview and the Imp, Pie MacKenzie doused him with champagne. I'd give five bucks for one of those hats, maybe go ten even.
 

Gordoff

Formerly: Strafer
Jan 18, 2003
24,634
24,372
The Hub
Thank You for the montage of magical memories. I had a bunch of stuff from that era. Sadly it was all left behind when I lived life like a day of destruction. But the memories remain forever, tucked into a corner of the past to be brought out when a smile is needed to get through all the heartache. It's funny what we remember from the past. I remember those flat, white W.C. Fields style hats they had in the locker room for the celebration. Harry had one on, Espo did too. Don Earle was doing an interview and the Imp, Pie MacKenzie doused him with champagne. I'd give five bucks for one of those hats, maybe go ten even.

Here ya go brother, happy hunting!
Boater - Wikipedia
 

rfournier103

Black & Gold ‘till I’m Dead & Cold.
Sponsor
Dec 17, 2011
8,276
16,823
Massachusetts
May 10 will be the 50th anniversary of the Bruins winning the Stanley Cup, their first such victory since 1941. This post – sort of a long read, I suppose – is my best recollection of those times.

The 69-70 Bruins

By the start of the 69-70 season, the Bruins were by far the most popular sports team in town: Bobby Orr was in his prime. Esposito, Ken Hodge, and Fred Stanfield had arrived the year before in the Greatest Trade of All Time. Derek Sanderson and Johnny McKenzie provided both goals and attitude. Gerry Cheevers was usually solid in goal (which couldn’t always be said for his backup Eddie Johnston). John Bucyk on left wing was a veteran, a solid goal scorer ever since the old Uke line with Vic Stasiuk and Bronco Horvath in the 50s. And then there was Teddy Green, the face of the Bruins until the emergence of Orr and Esposito and as rugged a defenseman as any. Green was lost for the season when he was felled by Wayne Maki who viciously swung his stick and connected with Green’s in a pre-season fight. But even without Green, the Bruins were as tough as any team in the league.

The previous season had been the most exciting season in the previous dozen years – admittedly not a high bar to clear as the Bs had finished out of the playoffs for 9 years running in the early/mid 60s. The 68-69 B’s lost to the Canadiens in the playoffs 4 games to 2, in one of the most thrilling series ever, when the magnificent Jean Béliveau scored in double overtime at the Garden. So when 69-70 began, Bruins fans had great hopes, even after Green went down.

The regular season was both exhilarating and frustrating. At the time, the NHL had 2 divisions – one division contained the “original 6” teams [okay, they weren’t the original 6, but that’s a different discussion], and the other had the 6 expansion teams (Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, LA, St Louis, Oakland, Minnesota), none of whom were nearly as good as even the worst original-6 team. The Bruins consistently won at home that year against everybody, did reasonably well against the expansion teams on the road, but couldn’t win at all on the road against teams in their division. Toronto was terrible that year, but the rest of the teams in the Bruins’ division were all very close to each other. Going in to the final day of the regular season, Boston and Chicago were tied for 1st place, with Chicago getting the tiebreaker. The Bruins played Toronto and beat them handily on the final Sunday, and Chicago were playing at home against the Canadiens. When Chicago beat the Habs, the Hawks clinched 1st place, and the Bruins, tied with Chicago at 99 points, were 2nd. Bruins fans ruefully thought back to a Sunday afternoon game at the Garden in January. Referee Bill Friday ruled that a shot (by Cliff Koroll, IIRC) went in the net and came right back out, but neither the goal judge nor any of the fans saw it (and there was no replay). The final score was 1-0 Chicago: had the so-called ‘goal’ not been given, there would have been no tie with Chicago at the end of the regular season, and the Bruins would have finished in first.
The tickets

Henry, Bill, Joan, Lee and I went to every single home game for 5 years, starting somewhere in 68-69. Henry and I were gofers at a civil engineering company, and Bill worked there as a Northeastern co-op. Joanie was Bill’s girlfriend, Lee had been Henry’s best friend since forever. We didn’t have season tickets, but we did the long waits (and some overnights) at North Station when tickets went on sale. And we took at least 1 trip a year to Montreal to see the B’s play at the Forum. Omigod, those were amazing times.

We were only interested in standing room tickets. They didn’t sell standing room as such, but there were hundreds of seats behind a post, or in the back of the grandstand where the balcony cut off your view, or anywhere in the 2nd balcony that wasn’t 1st or 2nd row. (In the 2nd balcony, people in the 1st row sat, people in the 2nd row had to stand to see over the 1st row, and people in the 3rd and 4th rows had to find spaces between the standees in row 2.)

There were four spots in the Garden that were great for standing: the 4 corners of the 1st balcony. In each corner was a railing where 6 or 7 (8 if you squeeze) people could stand. The people in front of you, in the last row of the balcony, were 2 steps below us, so we had a clear view of the ice even when they stood up. We would stand at the railing behind Section 104 – at the end where the Bruins shot in the 1st and 3rd periods. A long way up, but much closer than the last rows of new stadiums. And the corners are great viewpoints for watching hockey.

For the 1970 playoffs, I got lucky. A few days before the end of the regular season, I was reading the Globe on the subway to work and saw a 1-sentence blurb in the “Sports Notes” column where they put miscellaneous junk: “Bruins playoff tickets for the 1st 7 games go on sale at 8:00 today at the North Station Box Office.” Holy shit. They decided to put the tickets on sale with virtually no notice – the only mention was 1 sentence in the Globe, and they’re opening the Box Office 2 hours early. There was no time to get in touch with the others – we didn’t have pagers then, let alone cell phones – I just went straight to North Station. The line was relatively short, and soon after I got there Billy showed up as well. They were limiting each person to 8 (I think) tickets, but you could get back in line again. It took Bill and me maybe 3 trips through the line to get enough for the gang, plus a few extras, for all 7 games.
The Playoffs

The playoff format was slightly different then: In the first round in each division, the 1st place team (Chicago) played the 3rd-place team (Detroit), and 2nd (Boston) played 4th (NY). As the playoffs got underway, we fans were hopeful, but we all knew well that the team had trouble on the road all season. And that the BlackHawks were especially tough at home and would have the extra home game.

But first we had to make it past the Rangers. The Rangers were a tough team led by the Hadfield-Ratelle-Gilbert line, and a strong Walt Tkachuk centering another line. Brad Park led the defense (Bruins fans thought he was a wuss until he put on a B’s sweater a couple of years later), and Ed Giacomin was steady(ish) in goal. The opening game was music to fans’ eyes and ears, an 8-2 blowout, the Garden as rollicking as it had ever been. The Bruins took care of business in the second game as well. But when the series moved to Madison Sq Garden for games 3 and 4, the road troubles had not gone away: the Bruins lost both games, and the series was tied at 2. Game 5 at home was the most important game the Bruins were to play that season. Instead of the open, high-flying game that they’d played all season, it seemed that they magically switched to Stanley Cup-style play: tight play, skating the wings, taking opportunities when they come, and shutting down the opponents. Not the style we were used to seeing in Garden. And they beat the Rangers 3-2. Game 6 in New York was no contest (4-1 B’s) – the Bruins’ performance in Game 5 really finished off the Rangers. To paraphrase a different coach from a different time, it was on to Chicago.

Tony Esposito won the Vezina Trophy in 69-70, and he was outstanding in goal for Chicago. Stan Mikita and of course Bobby Hull led the team in offense, and Chicago Stadium was a bear of a place to play – the Bruins had won exactly 0 games there during the season. After coming so close the year before, B’s fans had that all-too-familiar feeling of Hope shadowed by Doom. And then something magical, unexpected, glorious, impossible, amazing, stupendous happened. The Boston Bruins went into Chicago in the first game and dominated the Hawks, beat ‘em 6-3. They played as they had in the last 2 games against the Rangers – it was as if a switch had been turned on, and the team recognized that they could play just as well on the road as in the Garden. And then, to the amazement of everyone, they beat the BlackHawks again in the second game, 4-1. The games weren’t even close. The Big, Bad Bruins had become the Big, Bad, Dominant Bruins. Chicago put up a token fight in the 2 games in Boston, but the Bruins won them both handily. Not one sane person would have foreseen the Bruins sweeping Chicago, but there it was. And the Bruins were in the Stanley Cup finals, looking to end the drought since their last win in 1941.

St Louis had been the best of the expansion teams, but they still sucked compared to any of the original 6 teams, so the outcome did not look to be in doubt. Because St Louis finished 1st in their division and Boston 2nd in theirs, St Louis had the first two games at home (and the 7th at home, in the very unlikely event that things got that far).

St Louis was no match for Boston. In Game 1, Scotty Bowman, the St Louis coach, tried double-teaming Bobby Orr, which left players like Bucyk and Espo open much of the time. The Bruins won a pair of laughers at the old St Louis Arena, a decrepit old barn, 6-0 and 6-1, then took the 3rd game at the Garden 4-1. Winning the Cup was now a formality (in 1970, a 2004 Red Sox-Yankees series had not been imagined). But if the Bruins were to lose Game 4, the next game would be in St Louis, an anticlimactic place for a Stanley Cup win.
May 10th

Game 4 was Mother’s Day, Sunday May 10, at 2pm. National television on CBS (Dan Kelly announcing), and local radio with Fred Cusick and Johnny Peirson. And was it ever a hot day – 90 degrees, crazy hot for early May back then. The five of us left the Dew Drop Inn, our usual pre-game haunt on Merrimac St, around 12:30 to be 1st in line at the door, like always, to race up the 99 steps to our standing spot. But there were 2 groups of 2 in front of us in line – turned out to be no problem, as they didn’t know the right route to Section 104 and showed up well after we’d claimed our spot. The mood was unlike anything I’ve ever known, before or since – not really the nervous type of mood you typically get before a crucial game, but much more of an expectant/exuberant mood waiting to celebrate, because it just didn’t seem remotely possible that the Bruins wouldn’t win today. And everyone had forgotten about that 1-0 loss in January to the BlackHawks: if the Bruins had finished 1st in their division, Game 4 would have been in St Louis, not Boston.

The Garden was packed, of course. Lots more people standing than usual – no electronic tickets in those days, and it wasn’t particularly difficult to get in a game by slipping the ticket-taker a $10 or a $20. The press boxes were packed, and you could pick out some familiar faces – Gordie Howe was in a blue dress shirt and tie in the CBS booth, Réné Le Cavalier was doing the French-language CBC broadcast. Inside the Garden it was broiling, especially up at the top where we stood. The chief usher (who by this time knew us pretty well) even opened the fire escape doors just behind us once the game got going, in a mostly-futile attempt to get some air circulating.

I don’t remember too many details of the game, except that the Bruins were obviously very tense, and the Blues were playing as if they had nothing to lose. It was a close game, no one ahead by more than a goal, and then St Louis took a 3-2 lead either late in the 2nd or early in the 3rd. Which, I very much assure you, changed the mood from expectant/exuberant to nail-bitingly-tense. 10 minutes left in the 3rd, Bruins down a goal and skating like crazy, Blues defending brilliantly, clock winding down. A roar every time Orr touches the puck. About 5 or 6 minutes left in the game, Bucyk in his usual place just to the left of the crease. Somebody passes to him, I don’t remember who, I just remember #9 poking it in and raising his stick, right below where we’re standing, and the game is tied. An eruption for the ages from the crowd. The game wasn’t over yet, but no one sensed that the Blues had anything left. They’d given it their best shot.

None of us behind Section 104 saw the overtime goal, Orr’s goal, just 40 seconds into the overtime. It was at the far end of the rink, a hazy miasma having settled in the Garden (smoking was still allowed). There was just a celebratory din, a din I not ever to be forgotten. The Cup came onto the ice, Bucyk held it up high, all the while trying to skate through the zillion people who’d managed to come on to the ice. Chants for Teddy Green to lift the cup. The celebration in the Garden went on and on and on til we eventually headed to the street. At one point, maybe I’d gotten a little too exuberant, and a haggard-looking guy comes up to me and says to keep it cool. A plainclothes cop. Eventually back to the Dew Drop, then some Chinese food, and home very, very late.
Aftermath

The next day was the parade down Washington St. Players and coaches in convertibles, throngs of fans I don’t know how-many deep. I yelled to Harry Sinden “who won the Smythe?” as he passed by, he answered “Bobby.” The latter passed by a few cars later, and I remember an extremely good-looking 20-ish woman trying to jump from the sidewalk into his lap. Like everyone else on the team, he looked totally wasted.
Two or three days later, when the afterglow was still a fresh memory, Henry (my fellow gofer) and I had to take some snapshots of some plans at City Hall, and we decided to make a detour on the way back, via the Garden. For no particular reason we wandered over to the Bruins office at 150 Causeway St. The Bruins office looked like any other office -- a lobby plus a hallway that I imagine led to a bunch of individual offices – except for one crucial element. The Stanley Cup was just sitting there, on a table in front of some pictures of old Bruins, along with a rent-a-guard, sitting in a chair, not much interested in anything that Henry or I did, So we each posed in front of the Cup, taking photos of each other. And that’s how my avatar photo came to be.

It seemed like the beginning of a dynasty. The next year, the Bruins had one of the most dominant teams I’ve ever seen in any sport – maybe even more so than the 2007 Patriots -- absolutely obliterating team and individual records for scoring. Then they ran into Ken Dryden and the Canadiens in the quarter-finals (along with new coach Ton Johnson blunderingly putting Eddie Johnston in goal for game 2), and they were out of the 70-71 Cup. They were still great, though not as dominant, the following year and did win the Cup, but even that year they missed out on clinching at the Garden when they lost Game 5 of the Finals at home to the Rangers. By the following year, the WHA and Orr’s knees had laid waste to the dynasty that never was.
I absolutely love this.

Thank you very much for sharing your story. Stories like this are my favorite part of this forum.
 
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BNHL

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My father was there while the rest of us ate KFC and watched from home. 2 older kids from the neighborhood can be seen chasing Bucyk around with the Cup after bribing their way in with counterfeit money.
 
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aguineapig

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The 1970 SCF began 50 years ago today in St Louis



Yesterday when I was young. Noel Picard and Claude Bechard. Dallas and Ricky Smith. Bob and Barclay Plager. Red Berenson , Al Arbour without a bow tie, but with the glasses. Always thought Saint should be Frank St. Marseille's first name. Cops in the penalty box.
Not in the video, but Freddy Stanfield's shot tipped by Espo and Jacques Plante "My mask saved my life". Derek with the "sweep check" to set up Swoop Carleton and then the breakaway shorty from Bobby. Chief with the Hat Trick. Dan Kelly doing the play by play like Pavarotti singing an Opera.
Thank You again for the memories. They bring a tear always. For time ticks away, but those memories remain frozen within it.
 

Budddy

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View attachment 341960 Taken by my parents who were at both Stanley Cups series. I believe this is the 69-70 celebration. Few notes:
- I always forget how intimate the garden was. Sure there were some obstructed views but nothing beat how close the fans were to the action
- Trying to figure out the banner in the top right. something like "Play ????? in ladybing Boston"
- How small the ice surface is
I'm glad I got to see 3 games in the Garden in 1986...Bruins lost all 3 games tho!
 

aguineapig

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Sanderson and Berenson. Fred and John, WBZ. Ricky Smith, Harpo. Chief and Pie, is it any wonder I always request my Son's Blueberry Pie on my Birthday. Heat and Humidity. Mother's Day and Mayhem. Overtime. Sanderson to Orr. Noel Picard. The Flight of a Shooting Star into infamy. The Cup. The crowd goes wild. What could be better than that? And yes Kevin, I too remember it like it was yesterday.
 

aguineapig

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After being knocked out of the playoffs in 1969 by the hated Habs, it looked like a rematch in the making going into the 1970 playoffs. With one game remaining in the regular season the Habs were holding the final playoff spot in the Eastern Division by two points over the Rangers. But a Ranger win couples with a Hab loss in the final game would leave the two with identical records. In that scenario it would come down to goals for. The Habs had a five goal advantage with one game left, it seemed a lock we would play them again. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum. The Rags playing at home against the Wings poured 65 shots on Roger Crozier and won 9-5. The Cat Emile Francis even pulled the Rags goalie up 9-3 looking for more. The Habs meanwhile were in Chicago facing the first place Hawks. They went down 5-2 and pulled Rogie Vachon to try to claw back, but the Hawks scored five empty netters winning 10-2. The teams had finished with identical records 38-22-16 for 92 points, but Rangers scored 246 goals to Habs 244 thus earning the last playoff spot to face Bobby and the Big Bad Bruins.​
 

Fenway

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After being knocked out of the playoffs in 1969 by the hated Habs, it looked like a rematch in the making going into the 1970 playoffs. With one game remaining in the regular season the Habs were holding the final playoff spot in the Eastern Division by two points over the Rangers. But a Ranger win couples with a Hab loss in the final game would leave the two with identical records. In that scenario it would come down to goals for. The Habs had a five goal advantage with one game left, it seemed a lock we would play them again. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum. The Rags playing at home against the Wings poured 65 shots on Roger Crozier and won 9-5. The Cat Emile Francis even pulled the Rags goalie up 9-3 looking for more. The Habs meanwhile were in Chicago facing the first place Hawks. They went down 5-2 and pulled Rogie Vachon to try to claw back, but the Hawks scored five empty netters winning 10-2. The teams had finished with identical records 38-22-16 for 92 points, but Rangers scored 246 goals to Habs 244 thus earning the last playoff spot to face Bobby and the Big Bad Bruins.​

@aguineapig I remember that day vividly

Improbable Rangers Win in 1970 Left Canada Out in the Cold

The Red Wings were safely in the playoffs after winning on Saturday and they couldn't care less what happened on the final afternoon. That night WBZ radio picked up the third period from Chicago and the Habs were suddenly eliminated.

The true Stanley Cup Final was the second round against Chicago who had home advantage but it wound up to be Bruins sweep.

 

aguineapig

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@aguineapig I remember that day vividly

Improbable Rangers Win in 1970 Left Canada Out in the Cold

The Red Wings were safely in the playoffs after winning on Saturday and they couldn't care less what happened on the final afternoon. That night WBZ radio picked up the third period from Chicago and the Habs were suddenly eliminated.

The true Stanley Cup Final was the second round against Chicago who had home advantage but it wound up to be Bruins sweep.



It was a tale of two brothers and two Bobby's. Elder brother Phil torched lil' brother Tony for 5 goals and 9 points in the sweep. Vezina winner Tony allowed 20 goals in the series. Our Bobby had 5 points in the series and controlled both ends of the ice. Their's the Golden Jet had but a paltry 2 assists. Derek, Eddie Westfall, Swoop Carleton and Donnie Marcotte stifled him. The Cup final was a mere formality against the Expansion West. The Blues were making their third straight Cup final appearance coming out of the 67 expansion. They were swept in all three.
 
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