Anniversaries are a notable thing in the sports world. For leagues and teams, discussing significant past accomplishments is often an easy way to generate some discussion. But for the National Hockey League, that went quite wrong Sunday, with a post about the famous 1970 Stanley Cup-winning “flying goal” from Boston Bruins’ legend Bobby Orr (seen above in a 1971 game).
The problem was that that goal took place in May, not March. And ESPN’s John Buccigross noted that before this tweet (and his quote-tweet of it) was deleted:
As Buccigross notes, that goal took place in May 1970. Indeed, it came on May 10, 1970, and gave Orr’s Bruins a 4-0 series sweep and a Stanley Cup victory against the St. Louis Blues.
It’s wild that the Stanley Cup Finals used to wrap up in early May, with last year’s concluding on June 13 and the previous year’s ending on June 26, but that’s a different discussion. And yes, while the “The playoffs end too late now!” has been a discussion for a while, the 1970 playoffs did not end in March. In any case, here’s a video of that goal, which saw Orr score and then go flying from a trip:
That goal also drew a lot of attention thanks to the famous “flying” photo. The most-discussed version of that was from photographer Ray Lussier. Famed sports columnist Stephen Brunt, author of the notable Searching For Bobby Orr unauthorized biography, spoke about the importance of that photo to his alma mater of Western University in 2020, 50 years after the goal:
“No one will ever talk about that game. It is less important than almost any clinching Stanley Cup game in history. But there is magic in that photo,” said Stephen Brunt, BA’81, MA’82, author of Searching for Bobby Orr.
“There is Bobby Orr frozen in his prime. Suspended in midair. No gravity. Arms up. Time standing still. There’s a bunch of stuff captured in that image.”
…“It wasn’t the greatest series in history. It wasn’t the greatest game in history. Its value is tied to that one image,” Brunt said. “Because it was Orr. Because it was a Cup winner. Because of the magic behind it. That game stands out in sports history because of the picture and not the goal.”
Tim Rappelage wrote a piece on this for FloHockey in 2019 on the unusual way Lussier got that shot:
Ray bagged his shot with the latest technology, a 35 mm Nikon F with a new gizmo—a motor drive—firing away from his rival’s camera position. It was a full combination of tech, luck and old-fashioned street hustle that allowed Lussier to reach the zenith of sports photo journalism. Yes, there was good fortune in that Bobby Orr came flying towards Ray’s lens, but minutes earlier, Ray gambled by lugging his gear 250’ to the Bruins attacking end, prior to immortalizing Orr’s moment.
…Ray knew that if St. Louis scored in overtime, it wouldn’t really mean anything,” said his former colleague Stan Forman, speaking to the web site Deadspin. “But if the Bruins scored, they’d win the Cup. Ray was smart enough to put himself in the right place.”
That place was in the west end, in the seat of a photographer from Record rival Boston Globe. According to legend, the Globe shooter was in a crowded beer line, looking to slake his thirst along with 13,909 other fans. That gave Lussier the opening he needed.
“I’m not surprised,” said Ray’s son Randy in an interview with ESPN. “He just took a seat and put his lens in the little cutout in the glass, and overtime began.”
It took Orr and the Bruins all of forty seconds to eliminate the Blues, and start a hockey party for the ages. Lussier was the only one to hear his new-fangled motor dive whirring. As the Garden transitioned to pure bedlam, Ray found himself face-to-face with his competitor from the Globe.
“What are you doing in my stool?”
“Oh, you can have it back,” said Lussier. “I got what I need.”
He sure did. And he made that moment one of the most memorable in the history of the NHL. Except for whoever scheduled a tweet on it from @NHL two months early.
Mistakes happen, of course, including here. But this still was a remarkable mistake from the NHL social media team, with this being around one of the most famous goals in league history. And it was interesting to see them called out for it by Buccigross, who is one of their national play-by-play voices on ESPN. That’s not a great look for the league.
