Tea Party For Bobby's Bruins

Boston 's assistant general manager, Tom Johnson , said the esprit de corps of the Bruins was something so special it reminded him of his days as a defenseman for the Montreal Canadien teams of the '50s. "We've tried to keep this club together, making a minimum of personnel changes," he said. "It's starting to pay off now."

"I can remember exactly when we began to get this feeling of togetherness," said Stanfield. "It was three years ago in training camp. Phil and Kenny Hodge and I had just come over from Chicago in that trade, and there were a bunch of other guys like Sanderson and Don Awrey and Cash who were up for the first time. We were strangers; we started going everywhere together."

"Let's face it," said Goalie Ed Johnston , "we're just a bunch of kooks and degenerates who get along."

At one time the most powerful cement was applied by Ted Green . "Greenie is one tough sonovagun," Sanderson said. "In training camp that year Greenie said he was sick and tired of fighting alone, that he'd better start getting some help or all hell was going to break loose. Teddy has this way of staring at you—a long, cold, hard, deep stare. Well, before you knew it everybody on the team was a fighter."

When Green fell to the ice last September the Bruins were not prepared to believe what they saw. Green was the man who couldn't get hurt. The team was both shaken and leaderless. "We couldn't be ourselves," Orr said. "We could still see Teddy lying there. Then one day Greenie was well enough to come back to Boston for a press conference. We were getting ready to practice. Ted walked into the room and sat down right over there, where he used to dress. His head was shaved from the operation and everything, and he didn't say a word. He just sat down, undressed and started to put on his underwear—as if he were getting ready for practice. As the guys came in he'd look up and swear at them or give them a shot—just like the old Greenie, like nothing had happened. We were all right after that."

"With Greenie gone, there was no question about who had to be our leader," Sanderson said, "but Bobby wasn't too crazy about it. He's a great kid, but a modest kid. One night after a game in Chicago I sat next to him on the bus to the airport and told him, dammit, he had no choice. We needed him, and he was it, whether he liked it or not."

So—reluctantly, but oh, so beautifully—Bobby Orr took charge of the Bruins and the several rinks of the NHL . " Orr ," says King Clancy , Toronto 's vice-president, "is the best player his age I've ever seen." Bobby is 22, Clancy is 67, which means he has seen them all.

Against the Black Hawks, Orr speeded up and slowed down the action as it suited him. "Like Gordie, Bobby has learned how to control a game," Harry Sinden said. "Before, if we were ahead 4-1 he'd be out to make it 6-1. Now he's learned to protect a lead."

It is getting a little difficult to select a single play by Orr as "best" in a series. Perhaps the most adroit occurred Tuesday night, with five minutes gone in the first period. In an end-to-end dash Bobby eluded one, two, finally three Black Hawks and, after a perfect give-and-go with Stanfield at the Chicago blue line, motored in on Tony Esposito , who was doomed and knew it.

In desperation, Chicago Coach Billy Reay switched Bobby Hull from left wing to center, partly to get him away from Ed Westfall's octopus attentions and partly to give the Hawks more muscle down the middle. It didn't work; Bobby managed only his second and third shots in two games, while his teammates fired on Cheevers from long range or in frustration dumped the puck into the Boston end. With Orr on the ice, the latter approach is an exercise in futility. "Whenever you do that," Reay conceded, "you can just kiss the puck goodby. That's just another part of the game Orr has spoiled for everybody."