BOSTON — They are old and gray now, some needing canes to get around. The hair, if there at all, has thinned. With the passage of time, many are not so big and bad anymore.
But when the Bruins of 1970 and 1972, proud Stanley Cup winners, assemble, as they did Saturday night at TD Garden, they carry with them a special designation.
Naturally this can’t be quantified with any metric or Q rating, but those Big, Bad Bruins of the early 70s are as popular, if not more, than any championship Boston team of the last half century or so.
Maybe it was because the 1970 Cup ended an almost thirty-year draught. Only years before, it was considered a good season when the Bruins managed to avoid finishing sixth in a six-team league.
Maybe it was because like the Impossible Dream Red Sox only three years earlier, they ignited a newfound passion for their sport in the region.
Or maybe it was their star quality. The 1970 team featured four players who would gain entry into the Hall of Fame — plus their coach. Among their gallery of superstars: Bobby Orr, arguably the best player in the game’s history, and Phil Esposito, the game’s greatest scorer until Wayne Gretzky came along.
But as time passes and some memories fade, one lingering quality remains clear: few teams bonded with its fan base the way those Bruins teams did.
“Those Bruins teams were what Boston is,” said winger Wayne Cashman. “You look at the Boston Bruins, you’re seeing the city Boston and the people of Boston. That’s the way they are. They care about each other, they bind together and they have success.”
It was a vastly different era, of course. Salaries were a tiny fraction of what they would become, and many players worked jobs in the offseason to make ends meet, making them more relatable. And unlike today’s stars, the Bruins of that era walked among us. They drank (a lot, it would seem) in pubs and bars that fans frequented. They were not, as might be the case today, hidden away in the VIP lounge, roped off from the commoners.
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There was a togetherness to those Bruins, who had a “one for all, all for one” ethos, both on the ice and off. If you took a run at a star like Orr or Esposito, you had a half-dozen teammates to whom you had to answer. Away from the rink, they spent time together — not as mandated team-bonding exercises, but because they sincerely enjoyed each other’s company.
You could meet those Bruins signing autographs at the opening of a car dealership, or a local market. They didn’t reside in gated communities or luxury condos in the Seaport district. Many lived on the North Shore — largely because that was where their practice rink was located, and not, as someone once joked, to be closer to Canada — and when their playing days ended, remained there, part of the community.
For those who didn’t live through the era, it’s impossible to convey how hugely popular they were. Tickets to games were so scarce that, for a couple of seasons, their AHL affiliate, the Boston Braves, played at the Garden while the parent club was on the road and they sold out, too. If you couldn’t see the Bruins, the next best thing was seeing the Bruins of the future.
They didn’t just sell tickets; they sold the sport. Thanks in large part to the team’s appeal, a string of MDC rinks were constructed throughout the greater Boston area, as the demand for ice time grew exponentially. From a media standpoint, they were largely responsible for the growth and success of Channel 38, which broadcast their games and led to everyone affixing “rabbit ears” to their TV sets to enhance the UHF reception.
And unlike so many present-day teams who are bland beyond belief, they had personality. Oh, did they ever.
“One hundred percent,” said current team president Cam Neely with an impish grin. “Some of the stories….”
The most famous of which might involve Esposito, who was recovering from surgery in Mass General after the Bruins were eliminated in the 1973 playoffs. Confined to his bed, leg immobilized, his teammates, in a movie-like caper, wheeled it across Causeway Street so he could join others in celebrating at a favorite team hangout.
They had nicknames like “Pie” and “Cheesy.” They had hockey’s version of Joe Namath in Derek Sanderson, who grew a mustache and wore his hair long, sported a flashy wardrobe and as a single guy, embraced the city’s nightlife like few others.
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It didn’t hurt that they won, and did so with style. Orr would play keep-away with the puck for what seemed like minutes on end. Esposito parked himself in the high slot and withstood terrible punishment while hammering home rebounds, an immovable object on ice.
They had role players like Eddie Westfall, who was a master penalty killer. Their second-line wing, Johnny Bucyk, was capable of scoring 50 goals or delivering crushing hip checks, depending on the need. Gerry Cheevers was at his best in big games, all the while sporting only the most iconic goalie mask in the game’s history.
They won two Cups and should have won more. But Orr suffered a series of knee injuries that rendered him merely mortal, and NHL expansion and the arrival of the WHA stripped the roster of a handful of key players.
Still, their legacy lives on. On Saturday, they were given the opportunity that didn’t exist in their era — a chance to raise their own championship banners to the (new) Garden rafters.
And with that, many in their seventies if not eighties, they shuffled off ice, maybe for the last time together — legacy assured, smaller in stature, but somehow still larger than life.
