The 1970 Bruins: Big, Bad & Bobby To Debut On NHL Network Documentary Commemorates 50th Anniversary Of Boston Stanley Cup Championship
To mark the 50-year anniversary of the storied 1970 Stanley Cup® champion Boston Bruins, NHL Network OriginalsTM will debut The 1970 Bruins: Big, Bad & Bobby on Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 10 at 8:00 p.m. ET, 50 years to the day the Bruins won the Stanley Cup®. In a rare roundtable interview, Bobby Orr, Gerry Cheevers, Phil Esposito and Derek Sanderson discuss how this band of brothers captured the hearts and minds of New England sports fans forever, and produced one of the most iconic sports moments of all-time: Orr flying through the air as he scored the Stanley Cup®-winning overtime goal in Game Four against the St. Louis Blues. Narrated by Dropkick Murphys founder and diehard Bruins fan Ken Casey, a trailer for The 1970 Bruins: Big, Bad & Bobby can be seen here.
Former Bruins Stanley Cup®-winning coach Harry Sinden and his players Johnny Bucyk and Ken Hodge explain how grit, toughness and skill catapulted the team from last place to champions in the span of four years. Orr’s arrival in Boston and his historic season, in which he captured the Hart Memorial Trophy, Art Ross Trophy, James Norris Memorial Trophy and Conn Smythe Trophy – a feat which has not been duplicated – is documented throughout the program. Orr, who was the first hockey player named Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year in 1970, says of this close-knit championship team, “Not only on the ice, but off the ice, we would have family gatherings with our wives and our children, always kids in the dressing room and practice and so that was important for us. For us to be successful, we just felt we had to be like that. And we were having a blast, and we were winning games.”
Massachusetts natives share their first-hand experiences rooting for this legendary team, including 1980 Olympic Gold medalist Mike Eruzione, award-winning actor Denis Leary, Boston Globe columnist Kevin Paul Dupont, Pro Football Hall of Famer Howie Long and ESPN columnist Jackie MacMullan. How the Bruins no-nonsense personality matched the spirit of the Boston in the early 1970s is explained throughout with MacMullan saying, “It’s funny, I’m equated today with the NBA and basketball. I was playing street hockey all day, every day. I didn’t want to play basketball, I wanted to play hockey. Why? Because I was watching the ‘Big Bad Bruins’ and I wanted to be like them!” The Beatles-like following this team possessed, which has rarely been seen again, is explained throughout with Long commenting, “When you went to bed and you dreamed, it was all hockey. I never dreamt about football. I don’t know that I ever watched a Patriots game.”
Leading up to the debut of The 1970 Bruins: Big, Bad & Bobby, NHL Network™ will air Bruins-themed programming throughout the day as well as a special hour-long NHL Tonight at 7:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, May 10. Following the documentary, NHL Network will air the championship film on the 1970 Bruins at 9:00 p.m. ET. Launched in September 2016 as NHL Network’s first-ever documentary series in association with NHL Original Productions, NHL Network Originals TM first produced Orchestrating An Upset: The 1996 World Cup of Hockey, a program on how Team USA defeated favored Team Canada to win the inaugural World Cup of Hockey in 1996. The First NHL Winter Classic: Hockey Goes Outside, Slap Shot at 40 and Picture Perfect: The 1992-93 Season have all since been produced by NHL Network Originals.
https://www.nhl.com/news/the-1970-boston-bruins-big-bad–bobby-to-debut-on-nhl-network/c-316691028