Bobby Orr, Pat Quinn and father and son hockey disputes- Have you ever had one?

Those who remember the early days of Vintage Leaf Memories will know a bit about my own hockey lineage.  That is, that I was born into a family of devoted (devout is a better word, actually) Montreal Canadiens’ fans.  My Dad was so passionate, the link extended past hockey to his cultural and religious background.

It was intense, and not always healthy, I don’t think—and I’ll leave it at that.

But beyond that one area of disagreement between Dad and myself (my support for the Leafs was clear but the intense dislike I had for the Habs was never really addressed openly within the family), we generally enjoyed watching hockey together—for the most part.  I talked too much for his liking, but we spent a lot of time watching Leaf and Red Wing games together. (We lived across from Detroit, and a local UHF station carried Red Wing "away" games.)

Like in the rest of life, we all make accommodations to maintain positive relationships.  For example, Dad hated Gordie Howe (and little Gordie did was appreciated in Dad’s eyes) but I tried not to cross him on that one.  It would have been a no-win for a man who dedicated much of his rooting life to the Habs and in particular Howe’s greatest rival, Maurice Richard.  I did not want to find my way completely out of Dad’s will.

In any event, the cold war was always “out there” in our relationship, though I tried to steer clear of specifics that I knew could set off a chain reaction.  He knew I loved the Leafs and we left each other alone in that regard.  When the two teams played each other, especially in the playoffs, if the game was on television (since we lived so close to Detroit, a lot of Hockey Night in Canada games in the 1960s were actually blacked out in our area when the Wings were playing at home), we usually watched (or listened on the radio) in different rooms.

It’s just the way it had to be, to stay civil.

But I well recall one time that we had actually had a spat, and it had nothing to do with the Canadiens.  You see,  Dad loved Bobby Orr (seen at right in his junior days in Oshawa, with the Generals...).  To be clear, Dad was no fan of the Bruins. But before Bobby joined the team at the age of 18 in time for the 1966-’67 NHL season (the last one before the league expanded to 12 teams), the Bruins were a last-place team and had been for half a dozen years.  There was nothing to hate.  Dad really appreciated the way Orr played the game—hard and fast—very, very fast.  Orr was also the smartest guy on skates, which Dad also appreciated  He liked everything that Orr did.

Like most hockey fans of the era, he was not as impressed with the Bruins when they became good enough to take on the Habs, especially when Boston became the often dirty  “Big Bad Bruins” and set all kinds of scoring records.  But he still loved Orr.

In any event, some of you will remember that, after winning the Stanley Cup in a major upset in the spring of 1967, the Leafs quickly went into a spiral.  They missed the playoffs the very next season (the first year of expansion) and they just managed to make the playoffs in the spring of 1969.  Their first-round opponent was the Bruins, who were building a formidable team that would go on to twin two Cups over the next three seasons—and by all rights, should have won more with a bit more discipline and a little less arrogance in the  early 1970s.

In the spring of ’69, Orr was already in his prime as the best player in the game at the age of 20, maybe 21.  The Bruins toyed with the Leafs in the first two games of the playoffs in Boston, hammering them by a score of 10-0 in game 1, and 7-0 in the second game at the cramped Boston Garden before a blood-thirsty crowd.

I say blood-thirsty because Boston fans were reveling in those days in the Bruins’ resurgence.  The Bruins were anchored by former Leaf Gerry Cheevers in goal.  They had Orr, and of course the Chicago trio acquired in a famous trade—Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge and Freddie Stanfield.  Throw in Teddy Green and Don Awrey on defense, the young and nasty Derek Sanderson, the classy veteran Johnny Bucyk and fireballs like Johnny McKenzie and you had an awfully good—and tough—team.

So as the Leafs were playing out the first game of the series in embarrassing fashion; it was the third period and Orr was absolutely free-wheeling.  He took the puck behind his net, coming out on the goalie’s right-hand side as he liked to do.  Just as he was generating some speed (and he could fly) Leaf defenseman, big Pat Quinn, a tough hombre in those days, saw Orr was picking up steam—and made his move.

Quinn (seen at left in action with the Leafs, in a wonderful Harold Barkley photo, with Jean Beliveau in pursuit at the old Forum...) absolutely crunched Orr with a staggering blow inside the Boston blueline.  Orr was, if I’m not mistaken, not only knocked down but briefly knocked out.

I was watching the game at the house of an old  grade-school chum (I was 15 and in high school  in April of 1969).  Like millions of Canadian viewers, I saw the brawls that ensued…Quinn being led out of the building because fans were trying to get at him.  It was a mess.  There were so many fights that night it was unbelievable.  The Bruins were “standing up” for Orr and the Leafs tried to fight back, as best they could, though other than another old favorite of mine, Jim Dorey, (and Quinn) they didn’t have a lot of team toughness that season.  Their forwards were awfully small.

(An interesting aside:  the very next season, in a game at Maple Leaf Gardens, Quinn nailed Orr was another open-ice hit in the neutral zone.  It was not as spectacular as the earlier hit, but still a big blow.  Nothing came of it, as I recall...)

In any event, Dad had been watching the game by himself at home.  He picked me up at my buddy’s house and on the way home, started to talk about the game.  He started going after Quinn for hitting Orr with a ‘dirty’ check.  (I’ve always believed he was reacting because initially it looked like Orr was really hurt seriously…)  But Dad was giving me grief as though I had done something just because it was a Leaf player who had hit Orr.

It was guilt by association, I guess.

Well, I was pretty ticked myself.  The Leafs had just been humiliated and I was in no mood for a “talking to” just because one of “my” guys had dared to touch the great Bobby Orr.  So I simply said, “It was a clean check.  He hit him with his shoulder…”

I got out of the car, slammed the door and went inside.

We never spoke of the incident again.

To this day (and as I’ve acknowledged here before, it so happens that, ironically, I developed a personal and professional relationship with Pat Quinn many years later, and he is someone I think most highly of) I feel the hit on Orr was a clean one, by the criteria of any era.

The allegation at the time—and supposedly the reason he was given a major penalty—was that he intended to hurt Orr and threw an elbow.  In fact (and I’ve seen the play dozens of time on film since), as I see it, Quinn hit Orr in the head (Orr was skating low, it would have been impossible not to hit him in the head…) with his arm…that area between the shoulder and the elbow.

Yes, his elbow came flying up as a reflex action to—and extension of—the hit, but it was not an “elbow” to the head, as many wanted to believe at the time.

In any event, what I really wanted to ask today was, have any of you ever had that awkward experience of being at odds with your dad over a matter as trivial as something that happened in a sporting event?

It always struck me as odd, though peculiarly like my family, that Dad and I would fence over the Orr hit.  (Clearly, it’s never just about the top of the toothpaste cap being left off that ticks the other party off; there were bigger issues brewing between us…)

I’d love to hear from you.  This could be fun….