Happy 65th Bobby Orr, the greatest hockey player ever

Good line. Will save it for future debates. With attribution of course.

 

Wayne Gretzky could stay healthy.

 

Charlie Pierce said in a recent Esquire blog that "Friends of Eddie Coyle" was the best novel ever written about Boston.

 

Bleacher Report says it's Gretzky, so it must be true.

OK, of Orr, Gretzky, Lemieux, and Howe, the only one I didn't see was Howe.

And it pains me to say it because I friggin loathe everything Boston, but Orr was the best.

Simply breathtaking. Literally. When I saw him play, every time he touched the puck, you could literally hear the entire arena suck in their breath as one.

The others had elements, perhaps even several of them. But Orr had them all.

 

Saw Orr drop down to block a Bobby Hull slap shot.

The sports has changed, as they all do.

 

Agreed. To side with Gretzky does nothing to diminish Orr's (or Howe or Lemieux) accomplishments.

Didn't Gretzky have more than 200 points one season in the early 1980s? I wonder if that will ever be duplicated.

 

He did it four times in five years, broken up by a year with 196 points. In what would have been the sixth year he scored 183. The only one to ever come close was Lemieux, who scored 199 points in 76 games in 1988-89. Lemieux did have som incredible years though, like when he scored 160 points in 60 games in 1992-93.

 

So does greatness not measure accomplishment as well as ability?

 

It measures both, and in reality there is little these two could not do and didn't do, internationally or professionally.
You can throw the Orr could do what Gretzky could do better than Gretzky doing what Orr could do hypothetical out there, but the fact is, neither was asked to and they played in completely different eras of the game. It is so tough to compare, especially when they play different positions and with one there is a ton of great footage on and we could watch just about every game he played, and the other finished playing almost 40 years ago and you could not watch every game. I can grab tons of highlights off of youtube and we can watch Gretzky skate through the opposition just as Orr did. Orr was more physical. That to me is the biggest difference, but Gretzky didn't have to be physical and didn't tailor his game to it. Gretzky also grew up playing lacrosse, and that's not a game you can float through being a wuss. Orr was also a bit bigger than Gretzky in a time when players were much smaller, especially by the time Gretzky wrapped up his career. Orr wasn't having to battle players who had six inches and 40 pounds on him. He killed penalties and did just about everything else as well. If Gretzky was asked to be a defenceman, I'm sure you would have seen him transform his game into being a hell of a defenceman.

Believe me, it's not like I'm saying Orr couldn't hold Gretzky's jock. I love them both. I think it's very close between the two, but I give the edge to Wayne. The longevity and the ridiculousness of the stats are what do it for me.

 

For all those who claim Gretzky can't fight...

http://youtu.be/wbw6WVs-lCQ

 

Gretzky, Orr and Howe are the interchangeable Holy Trinity.

(Due respect to mortals like Lemieux, Beliveau, Richard, Hull, Harvey, et al.)

 

i dare say nary a soul on this board saw this namath you speak of. and it's irrelevant. we can only judge him based on what we saw of him post-alabama, the afl/nfl broadway joe,' who was ALWAYS more myth than reality... i do not intend to turn this into a threadjack but some people's insistence on including namath in this discussion is offensive.