Photograph by Tony Triolo

"To students of Bobby Orr, the spectacular has become routine, and the routine has become unacceptable. One of a defenseman's primary jobs is to get the puck out of his own end and down the ice, and some players carry out this task with all the grace and ease of a starving man eating a pomegranate through a screen door. Orr does it routinely."

Text by Jack Olsen
Issue Date: December 21, 1970

In 1970 Bobby Orr of the Boston Bruins radically redefined the role of the NHL defenseman. As the first "offensive" blueliner, he set the single-season assists record with 87, lead the league in scoring with 33 goals, and was named MVP. His famous "flying goal" -- scored as he leaped horizontally across the crease -- clinched the Bruins' Stanley Cup sweep of the St. Louis Blues in overtime of Game 4.