Ice Hockey · 1970 · Boston, USA
Bobby Orr Takes Flight
Forty seconds into overtime of the deciding Stanley Cup game, Bobby Orr scores and is tripped in the same instant, producing the single most reproduced photograph in hockey history.
Bruins 4-3 Blues (OT), series sweep
Result
0:40 into overtime
Time of goal
1941 (29-year gap)
Bruins' previous Cup
The Boston Bruins had not won the Stanley Cup since 1941, and Game 4 of the 1970 final against the St. Louis Blues offered a chance to complete a sweep on home ice. Forty seconds into overtime, Orr took a pass from Derek Sanderson behind the net and beat goaltender Glenn Hall from close range.
As the puck crossed the line, St. Louis defenceman Noel Picard's stick caught Orr's skates, lifting him horizontal off the ice with his arms still raised in celebration. Photographer Ray Lussier's shot of Orr suspended in mid-air, having just clinched the championship, was captured almost by accident, an alternate photographer's flash had failed moments earlier, leaving Lussier as the only one positioned to catch it.
The image, simply known as 'The Goal' or the 'Flying Goal', became the defining photograph of Orr's career and one of the most recognisable images in North American sports, still sold as a poster and reproduced in histories of the sport more than fifty years later. Orr's Bruins had won their first Cup in 29 years, with their best player captured airborne at the exact moment of victory.
Watch the Moment
