When I was 10 years old and got interested in hockey my team I decided was the Big Bad, Boston Bruins and my favourite players were of course #7 Phil Esposito and #4 Bobby Orr. I remember following them on the radio and my frustration at times when the station WBZ out of Boston wouldn’t come in well. I grew up in northern West Virginia. Some nights there was just too much static but usually the station came in clear and I’d get to listen Johnny Wilson call the game. What a great announcer he was. For some reason in the NBA I chose the Celtics to be my team.Listening to Johnny Most was always a gas. The Celtics never committed a foul and the refs always seemed to miss the fouls committed against the Celtics.  I still root for the Celtics in basketball but in the NHL the Bruins have long since taken a spot as my #2 team behind the home team the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Esposito was a great goal scorer. He was a garbage man. He would park himself in front of the net and you couldn’t clear him out. He had a record 550 shots on goal in the 1970-71 season. There were six seasons in a row where he led the league in scoring. He scored 76 one season. My heart was broken when he was traded to the Rangers in the mid-1970’s and bad knees got the best of the great Bobby Orr. I got to see Phil Esposito play late in his career and score a goal. It was with the Rangers but it was still Esposito. I wish I had seen Orr in his prime.

Espo scored 717 goals in his career, 873 assists. In 1999 he was selected as the 18th greatest player in NHL history by The Hockey News.