This was our only full day in Boston, so we decided to take a bus tour. We caught the bus opposite our hotel, and just in front of the Boston Garden.

The Boston Garden was an arena in Boston, Massachusetts. Designed by boxing promoter Tex Rickard, who also built the third iteration of New York’s Madison Square Garden, it opened on November 17, 1928, as “Boston Madison Square Garden” (later shortened to just “Boston Garden”) and outlived its original namesake by 30 years. It was above North Station, a train station which was originally a hub for the Boston and Maine Railroad and is now a hub for MBTA Commuter Rail and Amtrak trains.

The Garden hosted home games for the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA), as well as rock concerts, amateur sports, boxing and professional wrestling matches, circuses, and ice shows. It was also used as an exposition hall for political rallies such as the speech by John F. Kennedy in November 1960. Boston Garden was demolished in 1998, three years after the completion of its successor arena, TD Garden.(Wikipedia).

While waiting for the bus I spotted this statue and went over to take some pictures. A sign on the statue read:

The Goal. Bobby Orr’s famous Stanley Cup winning goal. May 10, 1970, Boston Garden. Boston Bruins sweep St. Louis Blues with a 4-3 overtime win in Game 4.

The “goal” in question was one of the most famous goals scored in hockey history and one that gave Boston its first Stanley Cup since 1941. The goal came from a pass from teammate Derek Sanderson at the 40-second mark of the first overtime period in the fourth game, helping to complete a sweep of the St. Louis Blues. According to Orr:

If it had gone by me, it’s a two-on-one, so I got a little lucky there, but Derek gave me a great pass and when I got the pass I was moving across. As I skated across, Glenn had to move across the crease and had to open his pads a little. I was really trying to get the puck on net, and I did. As I went across, Glenn’s legs opened. I looked back, and I saw it go in, so I jumped.

Orr, tripped after scoring “The Goal”, went flying across the ice. The subsequent photograph by Ray Lussier of a horizontal Orr flying through the air, his arms raised in victory – he had been tripped by Blues’ defenceman Noel Picard after scoring the goal – has become one of the most famous and recognized hockey images of all time—and today is highlighted in the opening sequence of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Hockey Night in Canada telecasts.

The statue is An 800-pound (360 kg) bronze statue of Bobby Orr. The sculpture was designed by Harry Weber and unveiled on May 10, 2010.

Taken with a Sony A6000 and 18-135mm f3.5-5.6 OSS.