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  In addition to all that, my illustrious summer employment history included working at my uncle Howard’s butcher shop, picking dew worms at night with a flashlight to sell to fishermen, and working as a salesman at Adam’s Menswear. When I got older, I also worked at the Haliburton Hockey Haven, which was run by Wren Blair, Jim Gregory, and Bob Davidson. (That’s right, the first time I attended hockey school I was there as an instructor, not a student.) I also did part-time custodial work at my elementary school. I would go in during the Christmas and Easter holidays to scrub and wax the floors. There was an old furnace there that needed cleaning as well, and since I was the only person small enough, it was my job to crawl inside and clean it. It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it.

  None of those jobs I took on as a young boy was glamorous by any means, and they weren’t always fun. You didn’t wake up every day looking forward to the polishing machine or bales of hay that awaited, but you went, because that was expected of you. The bigger purpose of those jobs was to build character, and that is why my parents wanted us working.

  I believe experiences like that can benefit any young person. Those positions helped teach me the meaning of hard work and the value of money, lessons that everyone needs to learn.

  • • •

  My father also loved a good joke—especially if he was telling it. Once, when she was a kid, my sister Penny came up with some kind of dance routine, and she decided that our father would have to sit down and watch. It was during Oktoberfest, and I can only guess that Dad might have been out celebrating the occasion a little bit. To this day, I can still hear his laughter as Penny put on her show, and the more he laughed, the more she performed.

  Dad enjoyed life to the fullest. Our times together fishing were always filled with practical jokes and storytelling, with laughter as a constant. I can still hear “Yakety Sax,” a popular tune of the day, blaring out from a cassette player Dad brought with us on a fishing trip on the Moon River. He’d be in another boat with one of his buddies, and you always knew where they were, because they kept playing that song over and over. That song, and the laughter that went with it, still rings in my ears.

  Dad supplied me with one last laugh in the days just after he passed away. I was going through some of his things when I came across a rubber stamp of my signature. It solved a bit of a mystery for me.

  Years before, I had told my father that he was going to have to cut back on autograph requests, because I was having trouble keeping up. He would drop a puck to open a tournament in town, and of course people would soon discover he was my father. The next thing you knew, I would be swamped with another list of autograph requests from him. I told him, “Dad, just because someone says hello to you doesn’t mean you owe them an autographed picture!”

  Sure enough, I noticed almost immediately that he wasn’t asking for as many photos as before. I was relieved, but I was curious to know what had happened. As I looked at that stamp, it all made perfect sense to me, and I had to laugh. Undoubtedly, there are a few autographed Orr photos hanging on bedroom walls out there that came from my dad’s “printing press.” I wonder who my dad convinced to make that stamp up anyway. That’s one mystery I’ll probably never solve. Let’s just say that my father could be slowed down, but he could never be totally stopped once he put his mind to something.

  • • •

  As I look back at the impact my parents had in my life, I realize now that I was taught fundamental concepts that revolved around a central theme of respect. Simple things like holding a door open, speaking politely, or taking your hat off indoors, especially at the dinner table. Those basic ways of treating people with respect became habits for us, and I’m happy that my parents insisted on them. It wasn’t as though they would sit us down and formally instruct us in manners. They didn’t need to lecture us—there was an unspoken understanding about what was expected of us when we lived under their roof. And they modeled the behavior we were to follow. Some athletes act as if everyone is there only to serve them, and it maddens me beyond description. Mom and Dad wouldn’t have allowed that kind of attitude from any of the Orr children. There would have been consequences.

  In their later years, and long after I had made my mark as a professional hockey player, Mom and Dad could often be found sitting out on the front porch of their home in Parry Sound when they had good weather. By this time, they were living at a new place on Gibson Street, and I can assure you that the floors in their new home were completely level. People would sometimes drive up, introduce themselves as hockey fans, and ask if they could see some of the hardware my parents had collected from my playing career. Sure enough, they would be invited into the house to take a look at the trophies they had come to see. Episodes like that perhaps best reflect what my parents were all about. After the Bobby Orr Hall of Fame was created in Parry Sound in 2003, you could find Dad there providing tours for schoolchildren or welcoming a busload of seniors. Often I would call to chat with him, only to have him cut me off. “I have to go,” he’d say. “I’m off to Victory Elementary School to talk to the kids.” If I were to ask him what he was going to talk about, he’d say, “Don’t know yet.” And he’d be gone. I always got a kick out of him visiting that school, because not only did I attend Victory as a young boy, but so did he. Those types of volunteer activities were a big part of their lives.

  Was theirs a perfect marriage? We all know there is no such thing. Ours was a family that had its fair share of problems, just like any family, but we found our way through, in no small measure because of who our parents were and what they stood for.

  As an aspiring athlete, you don’t know how your life in sports will turn out, and you can only hope that all the practice and preparation will pay off. When I turned fourteen, I would begin my hockey career in earnest as a member of the Oshawa Generals, and this much I know to be true: my mom and dad had prepared me well for what was to come.

  Three

  OSHAWA

  My hockey story is not unlike that of many kids who dream of playing in the National Hockey League, though I suppose my journey started a little bit earlier than most.

  One of the hardest parts of becoming a hockey player is leaving home. Think of yourself as a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old packing a suitcase and heading off to a strange city. You end up billeted in the home of a complete stranger, attending a school you’ve never heard of. The group of friends, the pack of wolves, you’ve grown up with suddenly vanishes. The safety net of friends you’ve come to depend on is replaced by strange faces in the hallways of your new high school.

  You’re playing for a new hockey team, in a huge, unfamiliar rink, being cheered or booed by people you don’t know. You’re traveling from town to town. You’ve got bigger, older guys needling you night after night, trying to get you to drop your gloves, trying to see what you’re made of. Being plucked from one place and dropped somewhere else is going to be difficult for anyone, let alone a young teenager.

  Or, if you have children of your own, think of it from a parent’s perspective. Think of giving up a son at such a young age in order for him to pursue his goals somewhere else. That boy of yours, still just a baby in your eyes, is snatched from you and taken in by someone else. That is exactly the scenario my parents had to face, and countless other parents are confronted with the same situation at the end of every summer. I know very well just how difficult it can be for parents to see their kids go, because I was in the room when my mother wrestled with the decision over whether to let me go off to play junior hockey.

  In a sense, the most remarkable thing about my rookie season in Oshawa was that it happened at all that year. I was only fourteen and hadn’t yet left elementary school, but that was a minor speed bump compared to the fact that my mother was against it. I wanted nothing more than her permission right then, and I knew from experience that cajoling and negotiating were all but useless once she’d made up her mind. So, while s
he was deliberating, the question of where I would play hockey in the fall of 1962 was entirely in her hands.

  I hardly dared speak while my future was being discussed. But my father made my case with his usual persuasiveness, as did another gentleman who played a very important role in my career: Wren Blair.

  • • •

  Back when I was playing minor hockey, there was no such thing as the NHL Entry Draft. Until 1963, NHL teams could control players’ rights, even at a very young age. (In fact, the first draft was for sixteen-year-old players, and two of the six teams in the league, Detroit and Chicago, didn’t bother picking in the fourth and final round, as most sixteen-year-olds’ rights were already wrapped up.) Teams wanted to lock up the playing rights to any player who might possibly cut it five or six years down the road, and the terms needed to retain those rights were definitely in the team’s favor. Teams could ask players to sign what was called an A Form, which committed the kid to trying out with the club; a B Form, which gave the team the right to sign the player without actually committing to him; or a C Form, which completely assigned the player’s rights to the team. Once you had signed one of these, you lost any negotiating leverage you might have had with the team. But then, players didn’t really negotiate in those days anyway. After all, there were a whole bunch of prospective players but only six teams in the league, so supply exceeded demand. Kids who dreamed of suiting up in the NHL were often all too happy to commit to a team that showed interest in them.

  All the teams had “bird dogs” in minor hockey rinks across the country, appraising young talent and guaranteeing a steady supply of it. And without a draft to ensure that talent was distributed evenly across the league, there was a real advantage to getting to young players first. That’s one of the reasons the Canadiens were so consistently represented by the very best French-Canadian players. They had the best scouts in the rinks of Quebec—and they had a steady stream of young Québécois players who would give just about anything to sign a C Form with the team they grew up worshipping.

  The Toronto Maple Leafs had all the glamorous appeal of the Canadiens back then. Every kid in Ontario grew up idolizing the Leafs (as I did), so the Leafs could count on a reliable supply of starry-eyed young men, and an equally steady supply of tips from minor hockey rinks in far-flung towns. Parry Sound was no different.

  In 1960, I had the opportunity to play at Maple Leaf Gardens as a peewee. Mr. Anthony Gilchrist was our coach. He also happened to be an old friend of the legendary George “Punch” Imlach, the general manager and coach of the Leafs. As a friend, and as a Leafs fan, my coach wrote to Imlach to suggest that Toronto tie up my rights and make sure I would be wearing the blue and white when the time came. Here is that letter in its entirety:

  March 28, 1960

  Mr. George Imlach,

  General Manager,

  Toronto Maple Leafs,

  Maple Leaf Gardens, TORONTO, Ontario

  Dear Punch,

  First of all I wish to thank you and your staff for the kindness extended to the Parry Sound Pee Wee team on their visit to Maple Leaf Gardens. It was greatly appreciated by myself and by the men who accompanied the boys. Many thanks to Anderson for the photos. Mr. Kerluck has secured one for all the boys.

  I wish to pass along a bit of information which I feel sure may be of great value to your organization in the future. You will no doubt remember a fair-haired crew-cut lad who was in the group. You sized him up and made a remark that he was a hockey player. Well, he sure has the earmarks of a combination of Howe and Harvey. His name is Bobby Orr, aged 12 years, and he plays defence on the Pee Wee all-stars for the town team. I paid very close attention to this boy while we had the various teams in Huntsville this last weekend in the Muskoka–Parry Sound District Play-offs in the Little N.H.L. His team is in the Minor Hockey Play-offs now, and they play in Parry Sound on Saturday, April 2. It might pay to have one of your men look him over in Barrie, place him on your list now before Hap Emms sees him, or I feel sure it will be too late.

  That was really a good game last night (Sunday). I was pulling for Kelly all the way. I noticed you raising your hat as you left after the game. Best of luck in the rest of the games!

  I hope the above may be of some use to you. Our regards to yourself and your family.

  Sincerely Yours,

  A.A. Gilchrist

  Imlach never did write back, though my coach did receive a letter from the Leafs’ chief scout, R.E. Davidson. Davidson quite reasonably pointed out that a boy barely twelve years old was a little young to be put on a “protected” list and said that he would keep my name on file. He ended by saying, “I hope that someday Bob Orr will be playing for the Maple Leafs.”

  In fairness to the Leafs, those Toronto teams of the ’60s were Stanley Cup–winning powerhouses. They wouldn’t have been spending much time thinking about developing twelve-year-olds. Still, we lived just up the road from Toronto, and I’d been a Leafs fan from my earliest memories. And yes, Grandpa Orr was a diehard Leafs backer who would have given his right arm to see me wear the blue-and-white uniform that he cherished so much. I have often wondered what I would have looked like in a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater if things had turned out differently. But to be honest, when I was twelve I wasn’t sitting by the phone, waiting for a call from the Leafs, or any team for that matter. In fact, the thought would never have crossed my mind. I just wanted to play.

  • • •

  Springtime in Canada means playoffs, always the best time of the year. In early spring of 1961, I was a twelve-year-old player just a few days away from turning thirteen, and I was starting to get some attention from junior and professional scouts. At that stage in my development, I had no idea who was watching me or what they thought of me as a player. I would hear the odd comment that there was a scout from this or that team watching us, but I never paid much attention to the talk.

  Looking back now, it is interesting to realize just how very small the hockey world is. For example, one of those scouts who saw me in action that spring was a gentleman by the name of Scotty Bowman. Scotty is arguably the greatest coach in the history of the National Hockey League and someone whose teams I would play against often in my career. Back then, though, he was an amateur scout for the Montreal Canadiens—a team he would go on to lead to multiple Stanley Cup championships.

  Scotty saw me play at a bantam playoff game in Gananoque on a Saturday afternoon that spring, and it was the first he’d ever heard or seen of me. As he told me years later, he was there with a friend that day to scout a couple of players on the Gananoque squad. As he tells the story, at about the five-minute mark of the first period, his buddy leaned over to him as they sat in the stands and said, “Scotty, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I keep finding myself looking at that little Number 2 from Parry Sound.” Number 2 was what I had on the back of my sweater at the time.

  Scotty would eventually make something of a courtesy visit to my family in Parry Sound, but an offer from the Canadiens never materialized. They were at the top of the hockey mountain and no doubt had even bigger fish to fry than the Leafs when it came to recruiting players. My understanding from Scotty is that he sent in a report to the man who was running the Habs, Ken Reardon, and Reardon responded by saying something like, “We don’t sign babies to contracts in this organization.” Those might not have been his exact words, but that was the message. And who could blame him? But my chances of ever wearing a Habs jersey basically never got off the ground.

  I didn’t know it at the time, but there were also members of the Boston Bruins organization who happened to be in the area to watch some junior games and scout potential NHL prospects. In fact, the entire front-office staff of the Bruins showed up in Gananoque. Like the Canadiens, the Boston scouts had been told to pay attention to those two lads from the home team. But apparently, like Scotty, some of the Boston group seemed to prefer my style of pla
y instead. Wren Blair was one of those guys.

  Within a few days after that game, Wren was sitting in the Orr family kitchen. At the time, he was working for the Bruins as a scout while also managing and coaching the Kingston Frontenacs in the old Eastern Professional Hockey League. Like many coaches and managers I played for throughout my career, Wren told me later that as he watched me play during that game in Gananoque it was my skating that caught his eye. Scouts will tell you that any prospect has to show at least one elite-level skill. The idea is that if you have at least the one skill, then the other parts will hopefully round into shape and develop over time. If you have to be identified as possessing one outstanding skill, I suppose being known as a solid skater is what any hockey player would wish for.

  Both Wren and Scotty noticed my skating in that game and believed it allowed me to control the tempo of play when I had the puck on my stick. That part of my game would not change over time. I wish I could tell you some secret drills or training technique that made me an effective skater. The reality is that skating was something that just seemed to come very naturally to me.

  I don’t mean I didn’t put in my time and work very hard at becoming an effective skater, because I did. But if I said I was constantly trying to modify this aspect or that part of my skating, I’d be lying. Changing speed, transitioning from backward to forward skating, making tight turns, these were all things I learned on the bay. That point is worth repeating. When you’re playing ten-on-ten, you just naturally learn how to pivot and change pace to find that one spot of open ice.

  The basics of my skating, and certainly the rhythm of my skating, seem to have been there from a very early age. I’ve heard many theories over the years about what makes an effective skater, and I really can’t say why some players seem to be better than others. One fellow once told me that because I was bowlegged, turning my skates inward within the width of my shoulders, I had a biomechanical advantage. Other people theorized that being bowlegged might make a player more susceptible to injuries. You can decide which of those two theories, if either, is more realistic, but there is one thing I know for certain. When Wren and Scotty saw me in action, they couldn’t have been too impressed with either my size or strength.