When Orr's number was retired in 1979 the crowd would not stop cheering
- Thread starter Fenway
- Start date
I always said the Orr ovation rivaled what Richard received in Montreal but I never had proof until tonight. Getting the TV stations local archives digitized is time consuming and depends on volunteers.
Watching that I felt like I was back in the Garden.
Kevin, how is it that PBS (WGBH-TV) had this footage?
Any chance whole Bruins games going back to the early days of channel 38 could be digitized?
Some time ago someone here did a lot of work to put 3 hours of Bobby Orr highlights on YouTube, I was completely mesmerized by it, watched every second of it even to the point of stopping and rewinding some of it a few times to rewatch goals.
WGBH-TV had a 10 PM local newscast back then and Upton Bell did sports and this footage was intended to be used as a B-roll. The beauty of this footage is it is raw and unedited and you feel like you are standing on center ice.
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This picture makes me gag - There have been a lot of bad people in hockey but Alan Eagleson was the worst.
smithformeragent
Moderator
Fenian24
Registered User
- Jun 14, 2010
- 10,407
- 13,579
This picture makes me gag - There have been a lot of bad people in hockey but Alan Eagleson was the worst.
Sickening really. Bobby Clarke still defends him too, only guy left that does.
Thank you for putting this up, I was 12 when they retired his number, I agree with you regarding this vs the Richard ovation, the Habs planned for that reaction and it always felt to me like it was part of the program, not to take a thing away from Rocket or that night, the Canadiens do ceremonies right. Orr's night and the reaction always felt organic, a crowd telling a player how much they loved him and didn't want to hear or care about anybody else on the ice that night. I believe it was his first time back, I don't recall him ever playing a game here as a Blackhawk.
I have been to Esposito's night and all the retirement ceremonies after, what Bourque did was great and an indelible moment in Boston sports, but nothing will compare to this, still get goose bumps watching it.
I sent the link to Jack Edwards and he sent me a private message on Twitter
Jack Edwards @RealJackEdwards
Thanks for that link.
A treasured moment.
I was there. Never will forget the sound. It came from the heart.
Jack Edwards @RealJackEdwards
Thanks for that link.
A treasured moment.
I was there. Never will forget the sound. It came from the heart.
bruinmann77
Registered User
- Apr 12, 2011
- 13,555
- 21,146
I got goose bumps watching this video.
The old Boston Garden was a magical place to watch Bruin's games, and the fans were the best fans in the league.
...and of course Bobby Orr was the greatest hockey player I've ever seen play the game, and he also was and still is one of the nicest people on the planet.
The old Boston Garden was a magical place to watch Bruin's games, and the fans were the best fans in the league.
...and of course Bobby Orr was the greatest hockey player I've ever seen play the game, and he also was and still is one of the nicest people on the planet.
Orrfourever
Bruinaholic
No kidding! It was as if they went out last minute and to get him this "close enough" jersey.
In a way, it was like this retirement ceremony was a last minute job.
Good grief JJ, what a POS.
No kidding! It was as if they went out last minute and to get him this "close enough" jersey.
In a way, it was like this retirement ceremony was a last minute job.
Good grief JJ, what a POS.
JJ is blameless on this one.
This game was NOT an official Bruins home game and was priced differently because it was a 'friendly' with the Soviet Wings. The promoter convinced Bobby to allow the Bruins to retire his number - The promoter of the game was (drum roll) - ALAN EAGLESON.
Only when it was announced Orr would appear did the game sell out.
Orr had no plans to wear the sweater that night as he was still employed by Chicago and in fact thanked Dollar Bill Wirtz and Tommy Ivan but never mentioned Jacobs or Sinden but he put the sweater on when he heard the crowd.
- Sep 22, 2011
- 11,489
- 12,116
Just another reason to hate that horrible, evil man. As if we needed one. He is truly the hockey Antichrist.
Therick67
Registered User
Official game or not, it was JJ's building. I've never seen someone as innocent and blameless ass JJ is whenever it comes to anything to do with this team.
I was at this game with my dad and Uncle. Still have the program and ticket stub.
The only player of any sport that I am aware of that the fans were actually "in love" with. Older fans looked at him as the kid they wished was theirs and everyone else simply looked on him as some perfect human being with Divine talent. Will never be replicated.
BsEuphoria
The Future
- Sep 21, 2013
- 2,125
- 2
for me.
That was amazing! Thanks for posting this. Bobby Orr was the greatest hockey player of all time, and he is an even a better human being, one of the nicest people ever.
Lord knows I have had my issues with Jacobs....but
He was willing to give Orr partial ownership while knowing his playing days were numbered. The Bruins tried to get insurance from Lloyd's of London on the contract they offered and the knee experts wrote that at best Orr had 50 games left before it would be impossible to continue. He only played 26 games for Chicago over 3 seasons.
Bobby did not learn the truth until 1983 and he was dead broke and working as a salesman for a South Boston printing company. It was at this 'charity' event sponsored by the Phil Esposito Foundation which assists ex-NHLers in need that Sinden finally showed Orr the correspondence the team had with Eagleson.
It still took 15 years to bring Eagleson to justice.
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LEIGH MONTVILLE; A ROOM THAT STILL BELONGS TO NO. 4
Boston Globe (pre-1997 Fulltext) - Boston, Mass.
Author: Montville, Leigh
Date: Feb 4, 1983
Start Page: 1
Section: SPORTS
The room is his again. The faces mostly are different; and the music from the speakers at the far wall is different, some group from Australia singing about coming from the land down under, but the room is the same. His room. The Boston Bruins' dressing room.
"Is it OK if I dress here for the game?" he asks, sitting at the locker spot of 20-year-old Tom Fergus, a center on the present Bruins team.
"I thought you were going to dress over there," Fergus says. "That's what I thought."
"Well, I thought maybe I'd dress here," he says, sitting on the long bench along the pine-paneled wall. "It's where I've dressed the last two days."
"Well . . . yeh," Fergus says. "Yeh. Sure!"
His room. Always his room. He could be gone forever, held hostage for a couple of thousand light years in Timbuktu, stuffed inside a Nabisco box and shipped around the world, and if he reappeared on a given day the room would be his room again. The Boston Bruins' dressing room.
He still would be Bobby Orr.
"How do you feel?" he is asked. "How are the legs?"
"The legs are fine," he says. "I ride a bicycle a lot. I do some exercises. Play a little tennis. It's the arms that are beginning to hurt. Right here at the top. The old, old story. The head says, Go, go,' the body says, No, no.' "
He had skated for an hour and a half on the Garden ice yesterday morning for the second straight day, swoops and swirls and slappers from the blue line. There is a game at 7:30 tonight at the Garden, a not-so-fast exhibition wrist shot down Memory Lane that will match a team called " The Masters of Hockey" against a Bruins alumni team from the Stanley Cup years of 1970 and 1972. Gordie Howe is coming. Bobby Hull. Stan Mikita. Yvan Cournoyer. Not a night to look bad. Not with Phil Esposito and Ken Hodge and Derek Sanderson and John McKenzie and all the rest of the old Bruins looking for that familiar No. 4. Not with the sellout crowd.
"I'll tell you how the tickets sold," Bruins publicist Nate Greenberg says. "They went as soon as it was announced that Bobby Orr was going to play. Simple as that."
"Friends of mine have been telling me to work out so I won't embarrass them," Bobby Orr says. "How do you like that? So I won't embarrass them. Not worrying about whether I might embarrass myself, but whether I'll embarrass them."
He has not played a game of hockey since a year ago in New York, when he played in another one of these affairs at Madison Square Garden. He has not played a competitive game of hockey since 1978, when his ground-down knees finally sent him into retirement. Doesn't matter. A sellout crowd always will gather in this city to watch Ted Williams swing a baseball bat, even if he has to do it from a wheelchair. The same sellout will gather to watch Bobby Orr skate with a puck. Just one more time.
"He suddenly was out there yesterday," 18-year-old Gord Kluzak, the youngest Bruin, said. "I was startled. He was just . . . there. I wasn't ready for it. I was young when he was playing, but I remember. Do I remember? I always wore his number when I was a kid. He was the guy who changed the game for a defenseman. Forever."
He has worked mostly this time with some Bruins old-timers. Little pass plays with McKenzie. Feeds to John Bucyk in that familiar position to the left of the net. Fakes on Gary Doak. Shots on Cheevers, who is padded and dressed for goaltending work, wearing that familiar white mask with all the Magic- marker stitches drawn on the face. The kids of the present Bruins' juggernaut have overlapped only at the end, an optional skate on the day of a game with the Quebec Nordiques.
Old and new. Together. Pete Peeters and Cheevers. Kluzak and Orr. Milbury and Doak. Fergus and McKenzie. Luc Dufour and Bucyk. Together. Time disappeared. Together.
"How'd your streak end?" Cheevers is asked because his unbeaten streak of 32 games is a record Peeters is approaching at 27.
"We're playing Toronto, near the end of the season," Cheevers says. "We're going out to the ice and I look around. Where's Bobby and Phil?' I ask. I gave 'em the night off,' Tom Johnson, who's the coach, says. Gave 'em the night off?' I say. Resting,' Tom says. The score was 4-0, Toronto, after the first 10 minutes."
Where's Bobby and Phil? No problem now. Phil is on the way. Bobby is in the room already. The Bruins' dressing room. His room.
"It's good to get back to this," he says. "This will be fun. Seeing the guys. Being together. Just being here. There are a lot of memories in this room. It was heaven."
He is dressed in a blue pin-striped suit, the 34-year-old businessman going back to work. The kids are getting ready for the Nordiques. He watches them for a half-minute with a quick heartbeat of envy for their size, their condition, their youth.
"Kluzak," he says.
"Yes?" the 18-year-old defenseman answers.
"Get a body, kid," Bobby Orr says with mock seriousness as he leaves the room. The Bruins' dressing room. His room.
Boston Globe (pre-1997 Fulltext) - Boston, Mass.
Author: Montville, Leigh
Date: Feb 4, 1983
Start Page: 1
Section: SPORTS
The room is his again. The faces mostly are different; and the music from the speakers at the far wall is different, some group from Australia singing about coming from the land down under, but the room is the same. His room. The Boston Bruins' dressing room.
"Is it OK if I dress here for the game?" he asks, sitting at the locker spot of 20-year-old Tom Fergus, a center on the present Bruins team.
"I thought you were going to dress over there," Fergus says. "That's what I thought."
"Well, I thought maybe I'd dress here," he says, sitting on the long bench along the pine-paneled wall. "It's where I've dressed the last two days."
"Well . . . yeh," Fergus says. "Yeh. Sure!"
His room. Always his room. He could be gone forever, held hostage for a couple of thousand light years in Timbuktu, stuffed inside a Nabisco box and shipped around the world, and if he reappeared on a given day the room would be his room again. The Boston Bruins' dressing room.
He still would be Bobby Orr.
"How do you feel?" he is asked. "How are the legs?"
"The legs are fine," he says. "I ride a bicycle a lot. I do some exercises. Play a little tennis. It's the arms that are beginning to hurt. Right here at the top. The old, old story. The head says, Go, go,' the body says, No, no.' "
He had skated for an hour and a half on the Garden ice yesterday morning for the second straight day, swoops and swirls and slappers from the blue line. There is a game at 7:30 tonight at the Garden, a not-so-fast exhibition wrist shot down Memory Lane that will match a team called " The Masters of Hockey" against a Bruins alumni team from the Stanley Cup years of 1970 and 1972. Gordie Howe is coming. Bobby Hull. Stan Mikita. Yvan Cournoyer. Not a night to look bad. Not with Phil Esposito and Ken Hodge and Derek Sanderson and John McKenzie and all the rest of the old Bruins looking for that familiar No. 4. Not with the sellout crowd.
"I'll tell you how the tickets sold," Bruins publicist Nate Greenberg says. "They went as soon as it was announced that Bobby Orr was going to play. Simple as that."
"Friends of mine have been telling me to work out so I won't embarrass them," Bobby Orr says. "How do you like that? So I won't embarrass them. Not worrying about whether I might embarrass myself, but whether I'll embarrass them."
He has not played a game of hockey since a year ago in New York, when he played in another one of these affairs at Madison Square Garden. He has not played a competitive game of hockey since 1978, when his ground-down knees finally sent him into retirement. Doesn't matter. A sellout crowd always will gather in this city to watch Ted Williams swing a baseball bat, even if he has to do it from a wheelchair. The same sellout will gather to watch Bobby Orr skate with a puck. Just one more time.
"He suddenly was out there yesterday," 18-year-old Gord Kluzak, the youngest Bruin, said. "I was startled. He was just . . . there. I wasn't ready for it. I was young when he was playing, but I remember. Do I remember? I always wore his number when I was a kid. He was the guy who changed the game for a defenseman. Forever."
He has worked mostly this time with some Bruins old-timers. Little pass plays with McKenzie. Feeds to John Bucyk in that familiar position to the left of the net. Fakes on Gary Doak. Shots on Cheevers, who is padded and dressed for goaltending work, wearing that familiar white mask with all the Magic- marker stitches drawn on the face. The kids of the present Bruins' juggernaut have overlapped only at the end, an optional skate on the day of a game with the Quebec Nordiques.
Old and new. Together. Pete Peeters and Cheevers. Kluzak and Orr. Milbury and Doak. Fergus and McKenzie. Luc Dufour and Bucyk. Together. Time disappeared. Together.
"How'd your streak end?" Cheevers is asked because his unbeaten streak of 32 games is a record Peeters is approaching at 27.
"We're playing Toronto, near the end of the season," Cheevers says. "We're going out to the ice and I look around. Where's Bobby and Phil?' I ask. I gave 'em the night off,' Tom Johnson, who's the coach, says. Gave 'em the night off?' I say. Resting,' Tom says. The score was 4-0, Toronto, after the first 10 minutes."
Where's Bobby and Phil? No problem now. Phil is on the way. Bobby is in the room already. The Bruins' dressing room. His room.
"It's good to get back to this," he says. "This will be fun. Seeing the guys. Being together. Just being here. There are a lot of memories in this room. It was heaven."
He is dressed in a blue pin-striped suit, the 34-year-old businessman going back to work. The kids are getting ready for the Nordiques. He watches them for a half-minute with a quick heartbeat of envy for their size, their condition, their youth.
"Kluzak," he says.
"Yes?" the 18-year-old defenseman answers.
"Get a body, kid," Bobby Orr says with mock seriousness as he leaves the room. The Bruins' dressing room. His room.
