Number Four, Bobby Orr

Shank, as he tends to do with every fifth column or so, takes a look back in time and notes Bobby Orr's first game with the Boston Bruins:

There’s a Gretzky Camp and a Gordie Howe Camp, but around these parts, there has never been any doubt that Bobby Orr is the greatest hockey player who ever lived.

There’s no way to prove it, of course. It’s a subjective sports argument, which is part of what makes it fun. But for those of us who grew up around Boston and saw Orr play, there can never be any doubt. The rest of you can check the videotape, talk to folks who played with or against him, and maybe take a gander at that statue of a flying Bobby after the Mother’s Day goal in 1970.

I raise this topic today not because the young Bruins of 2016 are playing their home opener at the New Garden Thursday night, but because this week marks the 50th anniversary of Orr’s first game with the Bruins at the Old Garden in 1966.

Fifty years. The golden anniversary for the Golden Child. How can it be that a half-century has passed since the night we first saw the crew-cut teen-ager from Parry Sound, Ontario?

To be fair to Shank, this column did look like it took some level of effort; it's not the usual piece of crap he churns out on a routine basis.