Bourque Better than Orr?

2004

Back in Boston, where Ray Bourque and Bobby Orr both made
their names, there probably isn't a puck-loving, Bruins-worshiping
baby boomer who would consider Bourque the better player.

Well, time to consider it.

Better yet, with Bourque entering the Hockey Hall of Fame here last
night, it is finally time to believe it.

We could end this discussion right here on the numbers. By the
stats alone, Bourque wins it skating away, backwards. He played 22
seasons to Orr's 12, averaged 73 games per season to Orr's 55, and
finished as the No. 1 scoring defenceman of all time, leading in
goals (410), assists (1,169) and points (1,579). Orr finished with
915 points, a total 664 fewer than Bourque.

If the issue at hand were simply to answer a different question -
who had the better career? - the total tonnage of Bourque's numbers
would provide the answer.

But as for who's the better player, well, that encompasses so much
more. And one thing Orr has going for him, beyond any argument, is
the residual aura of his career. In that sense, he remains the John
F. Kennedy of the Boston Bruins, a man forever cherished for his
presence and accomplishments over what was, for most of us in Bruins
Country, a regrettably short period of time.

Orr was the crown jewel of the Big, Bad Bruins, a team that turned
New England into hockey's Camelot, and his daring dashes from the
back end of the ice gave birth to a new breed of defenceman - of
whom Bourque was one, Denis Potvin another, and Paul Coffey (another
inductee last night) makes three.

The National Hockey League had never seen the likes of Orr, not
only for how he controlled the puck and raced up the ice, but also
for those dazzling, unbelievable moments when he rushed the puck
daringly toward the blue line, then curled back with it into the
neutral zone. He made penalty killing high art, or was it trick
photography? The puck seemingly stuck to his stick blade, Orr
sometimes even retreated to his end of the ice and crazily turned
what should have been the opponent's power-play forward into a
befuddled forechecker. It was wickedly outrageous, at times bordered
on the absurd, and in today's chip-it-off-the-glass and
dump-it-in-the-end NHL, the likes of Orr would be a lightning rod
for a coach's ire.

Bourque was no fancy Dan. Although strong, fast, and iron-tough
with the puck, and as ornery as a bull when in competition for it on
the rear board or anywhere in the defensive zone, he did not have
Orr's raw speed or agility to change direction.

Orr was a risk-taker at a time when the game not only allowed
creativity but, get this, encouraged creativity.

By the time Bourque came down Causeway - just a few months after
Orr hoisted his No. 4 to the Garden's rafters - the league had grown
to 21 teams, and the Bruins still were reeling, on a personnel
basis, from seeing their swashbuckling roster of the late '60s and
early '70s stripped by the short-lived World Hockey Association. It
didn't help that Orr bolted as a free agent to Chicago, but by then
his career was essentially over, his knees never to recover.

For much of his time in the Hub of Hockey, though, Orr was
surrounded by far better talent than ever accompanied Bourque. The
best it got for Bourque was when trades brought Cam Neely and Adam
Oates to town, and the Andy Moog-Reggie Lemelin tandem was in net,
but in no way did he ever have the luxury of dancing with the likes
of Messrs. Cheevers, Esposito, Sanderson, Bucyk, Hodge, Cashman,
McKenzie, et al.

Oft-forgotten, too, is that Orr's first year, 1966-67, was the
final season of the Original Six NHL. By his sophomore season, six
teams had been added, and that 100-per-cent expansion delivered a
six-pack of tomato cans that the likes of Orr and his teammates
absolutely crushed. The living was easy, the land lush.

Go back and check some of Orr's mesmerizing highlights. Yes, he
sometimes toyed with the opposition, to the point where you would
sometimes cringe when seeing an opposing forward humiliated by one
of his turnbacks or video-game-like bursts of speed. We never saw
anything like that from Bourque. But again, they played in vastly
different eras. The bet here is that Orr, even in a 21-, 26-, or
30-team NHL, wouldn't have found opponents' rosters as stacked with
tomato cans as he did in the late '60s and early '70s. He would have
been a great player, but working with far less in terms of teammates
and faced with more worthy opponents.

Among Bruins fans, especially the boomers, to think of Bourque as
better than Orr is nothing short of blasphemy. Just the other day,
even Coffey called Orr the best defenceman who ever played. "Myself
and Ray Bourque," he said, "were just followers."

Over the years, Harry Sinden, who coached Orr and was general
manager when Bourque was drafted in 1979, has said he would opt for
Orr if he needed a goal, but turn to Bourque if he had to protect a
one-goal lead.

Orr was, without a doubt, a more sensational player, but it was an
era of incredible hype. He was the shooting star in the clear night
sky over Camelot.

The only things that compare with the Big, Bad Bruins era of the
late '60s and early '70s, in terms of how they defined Boston sports
culture, is the recent Red Sox win in the World Series and their
Impossible Dream season of 1967. As successful as the Celtics,
Patriots, and other Red Sox teams have been in the last 30 years,
only this year's Sox accomplishment surpasses the Bruins' two Cups
in the early '70s for how it influenced everything we talked about
in Boston sports for a stretch. And when we talked about the Bruins,
we first talked about Orr, and then got to everybody else.

For his 20 years with the "spoked B" on his chest, Bourque never
knew that luxury. For many of those years, he was the prized member
of a team that often ranked fourth in the Boston sports
consciousness.

Along the way, though, Bourque somehow managed to win the Calder
Trophy as rookie of the year (as did Orr), copped five Norris
Trophies as best defenceman (compared with Orr's record eight in a
row), and stood last night inside the Hall of Fame as the No. 1
scoring defenceman of all time.

It's not myth, what Orr did. He was magnificent. He remains the
player I most liked to watch, and saying that, I only wish I could
have seen Rocket Richard when he was the king of Montreal.

But consider that Bourque was bigger and stronger, vastly more
durable, far more of a defensive presence, and no one, absolutely no
one, played his position for as long as he did at such an elite
level, right to that one last shake of the Stanley Cup over his head
in career game No. 1,826 (postseason included).

It's hard to let go of the memories and the beliefs we hold most
dear. But for all he did, and for as long as he did it, and for as
well as he did it in the era he did it, Bourque was better.