Hockey season just finished up today. The league I play in finished today and the boys finished yesterday. However, we are heading into Spring sports and this year the boys have picked, you guessed it, more hockey. Both of them want to focus more on hockey, so they’ve chosen to play in a Spring league. Even though I’m finished for the season, I’m going to find some way of getting ice time so I can continue to practice. This past season was fun, I gained more confidence and was able to focus more on the game instead of constantly worried if I was going to blow it for the team. I always tell the boys “don’t play scared”, yet I got a good dose of playing scared in my first year. I can’t thank the girls I play with enough, they gave me constant constructive criticism and their coaching helped me tremendously.
So why is this post called “Number 4?” It’s called Number 4 for Bobby, that is Robert Gordon Orr. The other day my husband was practicing at one of the local rinks and as he was getting off the ice there was this little guy, couldn’t of been more than three or four, waiting to get on the ice dressed head to toe in Boston’s uniform. My husband is a huge Boston Bruin’s fan which can be a problem in this town as we live in Vancouver – Boston beat us to the ever so great Lord Stanley. My husband wears his Boston Jerseys all over town, even during the Stanley Cup games. He gets lots of stares and dirty looks, but usually no one says anything as my husband is a big man and like he said to one guy who had to nerve to say something to him ; “when you’re my size, you wear whatever the hell you want!” So back to this little guy, my husband gets off the ice and comments on his Bruin’s uniform. The little guy just stared at him and my husband says “Do you know who Bobby Orr is? He is the greatest hockey player alive and I was really lucky when I was a little guy, I got to see him play.” The little guy’s eyes just lit up and his father says “he’s very shy, but if he wasn’t so shy he would not stop talking about Number 4.” How is it that a little guy like that knows about Bobby Orr?
When I think back to when my guys were three and five, I was running errands at Costco with the two of them in tow. I put my youngest sitting in the front of the cart and my oldest was walking with me holding my hand. We get in the store and all of a sudden the two of them started screaming at the top of their lungs, “mommy, mommy take us to see Bobby Orr, Bobby Orr mommy he’s over there. My eyes darted here and there but I could not see Bobby. Then I saw him; Costco had this travelling road show displaying sport pictures for sale and there he was, one great big picture of Bobby. The display was on the other side of the store, I had to squint my eyes to see it, but my boys saw it right away. My oldest bolts from my grasp and runs like crazy over to the display all the while screaming “Bobby Orr, Bobby Orr.” It was quite the scene; I ran after him got to the display and this man looks at me and says, “can you tell me how boys this age know Bobby Orr?” “Well sir, if you knew my husband you would know why they know Bobby Orr, he has shown them every video of Bobby’s greatest scores and he constantly tells the boys that Bobby is the greatest hockey player that ever played the game.” I had to drag the boys away from Bobby, they just wanted to run from one Bobby Orr picture to another.
At the beginning of each hockey season both boys always ask for Number 4 hoping that some of number 4’s greatness will rub off on them. Just a few of Bobby’s greatest moments – enjoy!
MOMWHEARINGLOSS 