The Cup Runneth Over

"When they drop the puck to start the game," says one rival manager, "the Bruins think it is a piece of raw meat." Known to their foes as "the Animals," the Boston Bruins have long been the toughest, roughest, meanest, most penalized team in the National Hockey League. Unfortunately, they usually won more fights than games; in the past eleven seasons, the Bruins failed to make the Stanley Cup play-offs eight times, and their last cup victory was in 1941. "Some people say they've been rebuilding since then," says Scotty Bowman, coach of the St. Louis Blues. "I don't think so. I think they started rebuilding in 1948--the year Bobby Orr was born."

Bowman should know. In the fourth game of the finals last week, Bowman's Blues went into a sudden death overtime with the Bruins. With just 40 sec. gone, Boston's Orr raked a loose puck off the St. Louis boards, passed to Teammate Derek Sanderson in the corner, broke for the goal, took a return pass, tripped acrobatically and slammed the puck into the net. The score gave the Bruins a four-game sweep of the Blues and their first Stanley Cup victory in 29 years.

Budding Dynasty. Orr runneth over with other cups. He won the Ross trophy with a record (for a defenseman) 33 goals and a record (for anybody) 87 assists and 120 points during the season, the Hart trophy as the N.H.L.'s most valuable player, the Norris trophy as the league's best defenseman, and the Smythe trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs. Says Bruins Coach Harry Sinden: "Orr may be the greatest athlete who ever lived."

And the rest of the team? Well, let's see, says Sinden, "they've got courage, spirit, harmony, talent, size, youth." Sinden has every right to be effusive. Since taking over the Bruins four years ago, he and General Manager Milt Schmidt have built a budding Boston dynasty. At 22, Orr is just one of a phalanx of young skaters with their best playing years still ahead of them. The flamboyant, mop-topped Sanderson, for example, at 23, is already one of the best centers in the league. He spells Phil Esposito, 28, who set two play-off records this year with 13 goals and a total of 27 points. They are backed by such elder skatesmen as John Bucyk, 35, and Johnny McKenzie, 32, who with Center Fred Stanfield, 26, scored a total of 53 points in the playoffs, an N.H.L. record for a line. Immediately after the Bruins' victory last week, Sinden said: "The first championship is the sweetest, but there'll be more, many more."

Not for Sinden, though. At week's end the 3 7-year-old coach shocked the hockey world by announcing that he was quitting the Bruins to go into the home-building business. He explained that the "new challenges" would earn him at least double his $22,000-a-year coaching salary. Besides, he added, "what else could I do in hockey?"

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