Orr turns 60, plus: Colorado revival, Stevens sweats

Now a Boston-based player agent, Bobby Orr's career accomplishments still tower over the National Hockey League Jeff Vinnick/Getty Images

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It's taken awhile for Bobby Orr's "circle of life" to make the turn back toward where it all began, but hockey's quiet lion turned 60 today and the milestone event begs this question: Does he still hold his place as arguably the greatest player the game has ever known?

In a word: Yes.

In more than one word: Perhaps more than we ever realized.

I feel qualified to make those statements simply because I've been around long enough not to have just seen film and heard stories about the greatness of Orr. I saw him play quite often, when he was at the peak of his greatness. I also had morphed into a hockey writer near the tail end of his career, so I covered him a bit as well.

I also saw and covered the head-turning times of Wayne Gretzky. While I freely admit that I was awed by his individual brilliance and smitten by his personal kindness and penchant for always doing and saying the right thing (traits Orr never even attempted to embrace, let alone master during his playing career), I never quite surrendered myself to the argument that Gretzky was the definition of hockey greatness to the exclusion of all others.

The Great One was and is the Great One, and a glance through the NHL Guide and Record Book will attest to that. But trying to decide who was better and who was the ultimate "best of all time" is an endeavor I've never found attractive.

I've held to that not just because Orr preceded Gretzky or because the two played different positions in different eras, but because when you look at each in his own time and place in the game, how can you possibly pick one over the other?

Gretzky was magic on and off the ice. His multitude of records, capped by the one that likely will never be broken -- 50 goals in 39 games -- stand as a sentinel affront the door to the hall that houses the greatest of the greats. But time -- 30 years since Orr last played a meaningful game and even more since he last played in the fullness of health -- hasn't dimmed my memories of him. One could still argue that no one has risen to the level where they might even begin to match his distinctly different accomplishments.

The Bobby Orr I remember changed not just the way defensemen played the game, but he answered the call of the true measure of athletic achievement: he changed the game itself.

Orr twice won the Art Ross Trophy as the game's leading scorer. No defenseman has won two scoring titles since and only one, Paul Coffey, has seen his name in the top 10 and that was during the lockout-shortened season of 1994-95.

Orr won the Norris Trophy (best defenseman) a record eight times and the Hart Trophy (MVP) in three consecutive seasons (1970-72), an achievement no other backliner has ever begun to match. Orr was the first player to win the Conn Smythe Trophy twice (Boston's Cup-winning years of 1970 and 1972) and was the only player ever to win the Norris, Ross, Hart and Smythe trophies in a single season.

Orr scored the most points in one season by an NHL defenseman (139 during the 1970-71 campaign). He recorded the most assists in one season by a defenseman (102 that same season). Orr still holds the record for the highest plus-minus statistic ( +124) by any player, forward or defense. His 102 assists in 1970-71 have been bettered by only two people: forwards Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. His record for most goals by a defenseman, 46 in 1974-75, was bettered by Coffey (48), but not until 1986, when Coffey was playing more games and on what was arguably the greatest offensive team in NHL history.

Orr had six 100-or-more-point seasons. Only four defensemen since have ever logged 100 or more. None have done it since Coffey and, for the record, Orr racked up his record of 139 points in a 78-game season, not the 82 that has been the standard since the 1980s.

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