Happy Birthday, Denis Potvin

One comment I put on this You Tube video to some poster claiming Orr was better. Bobby and the Bruins were bitter rivals of the Rangers for years. So much so that on Espo’s Legends video, he recounts how he told Grapes he would jump out the window when Grapes told him he was going to the Rangers. Thing is 30 years later, Ranger fans don’t sing songs about Bobby, do they?

Do Orr’s knee troubles factor in for anyone? I never saw Orr live, but my impression (with Orange and Blue glasses) is stardom aside, today I’d rather have Potvin in my lineup.

(I do respect that Orr was revolutionary, but I also think based on his highlights that he — like Gretzky — benefited from playing in an era when the competition was comically inept to stop him.)

Anyone catch his work this week on the NHL Network? I thought he was really good — better than his color work for the Panthers.

…..Denis was a VERY big part of why I completely walked away from the Bruins in the fall of ‘75 after having been a diehard Orr and, to a lesser extent, B’s fan for 5 years (much of the Orr fan club stuff long gone) I still consider him to be one of my childhood heroes and, physical contrasts aside, there are some ways I identified with him off the ice – and his b-day was only 3 before mine (well, and 9 years)…..

Met both of them (Orr with Mike Walton in 1972, Potvin with his daughter Madeleine at an old-timer’s game in 1993 (?) and Bobby was a lot friendlier, but Denis still cordial, probably a little rattled by my putting an arm around him for the picture I got – with Maddy in it too (sometimes, of course, he could be very glib, as is well-known…..) still have a large file of Potvin articles and periodical photos from 1975-1990, probably around 100 items in total, as well as all the Hockey News, Hockey Digest, Hockey World, Sports Illustrated, Goal covers (only 1 of those, actually, that the Eighties cover story – have seen one from his rookie season with Jean that I wanted to nab…..) To this day I wish McFarlane had issued a figure for Denis as well as Bossy, but the whole Orr comparison probably made that unlikely.