Bobby Orr's Winning Goal
How It All Began
The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston, Massachusetts. They are part of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The team has been in existence since 1924, and is the league's third-oldest team and is the oldest in the United States. It is also an Original Six franchise, along with the Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs. The Bruins have won six Stanley Cup championships, tied for fourth most of all-time and tied second-most of any American NHL team. Their home arena is the TD Garden, where they have played since 1995 after the old Garden was taken down. The Bruins began play in the NHL on December 1, 1924. The first facility to host them was what was then known as the Boston Arena (today's Matthews Arena) — the world's oldest (built 1909–10) indoor ice hockey facility still in use for the sport at any level of competition— and following the Bruins' departure from the Boston Arena, the team played its home games at the Boston Garden for 67 seasons, beginning in 1928 and concluding in 1995.
In 1970, a 29-year Stanley Cup drought came to an end in Boston, as the Bruins defeated the St. Louis Blues in four games in the Final. Orr scored the game-winning goal in overtime to clinch the Stanley Cup. The same season was Orr's most awarded—the third of eight consecutive years he won the James Norris Memorial Trophy as the top defenseman in the NHL—and he won the Art Ross Trophy, the Conn Smythe Trophy and the Hart Memorial Trophy, the only player to ever win four major awards in the same season. This season was part of many that showed Orrs abilities tobecome one of the greatest players to play the game. Later in his life he was put in the Hall of Fame.