Searching for Bobby Orr - Hardcover

Brunt, Stephen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0676976514 ISBN 13: 9780676976519

Publisher: Knopf Canada, 2006

Synopsis

The book that hockey fans have been waiting for: the definitive, unauthorized account of the man many say was the greatest player the game has ever seen.

The legend of Bobby Orr is one of the most enduring in sport. Even those who have never played the game of hockey know that the myth surrounding Canada’s great pastime originates in places like Bobby Orr’s Parry Sound. In the glory years of the Original Six – an era when the majority of NHLers were Canadian – hockey players seemed to emerge fully formed from our frozen rivers and backyard rinks, to have found the source of their genius somehow in the landscape. Like Mozart, they just appeared – Howie Morenz, Gordie Howe, Maurice Richard and Bobby Orr – spun out of the elements, prodigies, geniuses, originals, to stoke the fantasy of a nation united around a puck.

Bobby Orr redefined the defensive style of hockey; there was nothing like it before him. He was the first to infuse the defenseman position with offensive juice, driving up the ice, setting up players and scoring some goals of his own. He was the first player to win three straight MVP awards, the first defenseman to score twenty or more goals in a season. His most famous goal won the Boston Bruins the Stanley Cup in 1970 – for the first time in twenty-nine years – against the St. Louis Blues in overtime. But history will also remember Bobby Orr as a key figure in the Alan Eagleson scandal, and as the unfortunate player forced into early retirement in 1978 because of his injuries. His is a story of dramatic highs and lows.

In Searching for Bobby Orr, Canada’s foremost sportswriter gives us a compelling and graceful look at the life and times of Bobby Orr that is also a revealing portrait of a game and a country in transition.

So Bobby Orr could skate, he could stickhandle, he could fight when he had to. He could shoot without looking at the net, without tipping a goaltender as to what was coming. His slapshot came without a big windup, and was deadly accurate. Skating backwards, defending, he was all but unbeatable one on one. He could poke check the puck away, or muscle a forward into the boards. In front of his own net, stronger on his feet than his skinny frame would suggest, he wouldn’t be moved. But there was more...
–from Searching for Bobby Orr

About this title

From the Publisher:

"(Stephen Brunt) delivers an exceptional piece of work...Those of us who missed out watching Orr in his prime can't help but feel we were cheated, and the precision of Brunt's portrait of the player only makes the sting sharper." -The Globe and Mail

"Even if you're not a die hard hockey fan, even if you know nada about hockey, this one will pull you in."-Winnipeg Free Press

"An impressive look into the life of a legend...Enough to satisfy any hockey fan." - Calgary Herald

"A classic of hockey literature....If you read one book about hockey this year, make it Searching for Bobby Orr."-The Sun Times(Owen Sound)

From the Inside Flap:

Just how good was Bobby Orr? Who saw the spark of genius first? Who first suggested - in spite of his small stature, his almost fragile appearance - that he play defence? From Canada's foremost sports-writer comes an unprecedented exploration of the life of one of the game's greatest and most enigmatic competitors.

During the early day of Bobby Orr's career - when the NHL was a six-team league - there were people around him who watched him play, amazed, and who first told the stories of his meteoric rise to superstardom. These are the "characters" Stephen Brunt meets in his quest to give us a picture of this famous yet very private man.

Bobby Orr was an astonishing, effortless skater. He rewrote the book on the position of defence. He was the first defenceman ever to lead the league in scoring; the first to score twenty or more goals in a single season; and the first player ever to win three straight MVP awards. His most famous goal won the Boston Bruins the Stanley Cup in 1970 - for the first time in twenty-nine years - against the St. Louis Blues in overtime. But the story of Bobby Orr is one of despair as well as triumph. History will remember him as a key figure in the Alan Eagleson scandal and also as the unfortunate player forced into early retirement in 1978 because of grave knee injuries.

Searching for Bobby Orr gives us a compelling and graceful look at the life and times of one of our greatest hockey players, as well as a revealing portrait of a game and a country in transition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf Canada
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0676976514
• ISBN 13: 9780676976519
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304