The Greatest Of All Time

In this week's episode of "A Pane In The Glass Podcast" we're going to talk about the greatest of all time in the sport of hockey (how appropriate during the Stanley Cup Playoffs) and the narrator on this subject is none other than someone who many feel might just be the GOAT, Bobby Orr. I have a short sound bite on what it means to be competitive and how one should deport one's self when your best effort doesn't not end with a victory. I conclude the episode with a survival game (no not the CBS hit series "Survivor") but a simulation scenario where you and some members of your family or circle of friends can rank a number of items that were salvaged from a plane crash according to the impact they would have on your ability to survive the harsh northern Canadian crash site in the bitter cold of January. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome to another episode of a Pay in the Glass podcast. This is your host, Bill Stuarhart, Dr. Professional Coastal Coaches of Canada, once again coming to you from my home on the shore of one of Canada's great lakes that would be like Huron in Grand Bend, Ontario, on the ancestral land of the Kettle and Stony Point First Nations. This episode will have two sound bites, one much longer than the other, and you'll understand when you hear them. And then we're going to finish up with uh a fun activity. So the first soundbite, you might recognize the voice. It's that of the hockey player that I think many people might consider the greatest of all time, and that would be the gentleman from Perry Sound, Ontario, Bobby Orr. And he's the narrator, and he's talking about five hockey players of his era that he felt exemplified greatness in the sport of hockey. And those five players are Gordy Howe, Jean Bellevaux, Phil Esposito, Guy Lafleur, and of course Wayne Gretzky. And this is his assessment coming from a player's perspective. And I think you will find this very interesting. And then those of you who are NBA basketball fans will recognize the voice of Jay Billis. And he talks about demeanor and about the confusion between not being the best version of yourself and passing it off as well as just being competitive. It's not a long sound bite, but I think you'll find it will make you think. And then, as I said, we're going to have a fun activity at the end of today's episode, and I hope you will participate in it. It's going to be one that we will start this week, and then I will reveal sort of the answers next week. So again, thank you very much for joining me. Let's hear from well-based of all time.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

You know, at 78, I've had time to think about a lot of games, a lot of nights on the ice. Not just the ones people remember, not just the ones that end up in highlight reels, but the quiet moments in between. The shifts where you felt in control, and the ones where suddenly you didn't people always ask about the greatest player. They expect a name right away. The one with the most points, the most cups, the biggest reputation. And sure, those things matter. They always have. But that's not really what I think about when I hear that question. Because greatest isn't just about numbers. It's not about who scored the most goals or lifted the trophy the highest. It's about the player who changed the way the game felt when you were out there. The one who made you adjust even when you thought you already understood hockey. The one who forced you to see the ice differently. I played in an era where the game was hard. Physical, every shift meant something. You earned every inch. But even then, there were certain players who didn't just play the game, they reshaped it. They made you second guess your instincts. They made the rink feel smaller, tighter, faster than it really was. There are a few names that always come up when people talk about greatness and they deserve to be there. I played against some of them, watched others come in right after. But when I think about the one who truly defined what this game could be, it comes down to something deeper than skill or strength. It comes down to impact. To the feeling you had when you realized this player wasn't just better, he was different. Let me explain why. Let me start with someone who defined what hockey was before most people ever talked about greatness in the way we do now. When I first stepped onto the ice against Gordy Howe, you didn't need a scouting report. You could feel him before the puck even dropped. There was a weight to his presence, not just physical, but psychological. You knew every shift against him was going to cost you something. What made him so difficult was not just the strength, although that was obvious the first time you got anywhere near him along the boards. It was how controlled he was with it. He didn't waste movement, he didn't chase the game, he waited for it to come to him, and when it did, he took space away from you in a way that felt almost unfair. His stick, his body positioning, even the way he leaned into contact, it all had purpose. You weren't just battling a player, you were battling someone who understood exactly how much pressure to apply and when. I remember games in the late 1960s, Bruins against Detroit, where the puck would get chipped into the corner and you'd go back for it knowing he was coming. Not guessing, knowing he'd take two strides, maybe three, and in the back of your mind you were already calculating how to get rid of it before the hit arrived. And sometimes you did, sometimes you didn't. When you didn't, you learned quickly that this game had consequences. There was one shift that always stayed with me. We were deep in our zone, trying to break out clean. I picked up the puck and thought I had a lane up the right side. For a split second it looked open. Then he closed it. Not with speed, but with timing. He angled me just enough that I had to move the puck earlier than I wanted. That one small adjustment changed everything. The plate died before it even developed. That's what he did. He didn't just stop plays, he erased them before they had a chance to become anything. Playing against him forced me to rethink how I used the ice. As a defenseman, I liked to carry the puck to push the pace to create something out of the back end. But against him, you couldn't be careless for even a moment. You had to be sharper, quicker in your decisions, more aware of where he was without even looking. I hate saying it, but there were nights when every shift against him felt longer than it should have. Not because he was everywhere, but because he was always in the right place at the right time. You never quite got comfortable. With him, it wasn't just hockey, it was survival. Now this one was completely different. When you faced Gene Bellivo, the game didn't feel heavy the way it did against Howe. It felt controlled, almost calm, and that was what made it dangerous. The first thing you noticed about him wasn't speed or strength. It was how little he seemed to rush. In an era where everything could turn chaotic in a second, he had this ability to slow things down without actually slowing the play. You'd look at him with the puck, and for a moment it felt like you had time. Like you could close the gap, angle him off, take away his options, and then somehow you were already a step behind. What made him so difficult was not anything obvious. It wasn't that he was the fastest player on the ice, it wasn't that he hit the hardest. It was his positioning, his awareness, and the way he carried himself shift after shift. He always seemed to know where the next play was going before it happened. Not in a flashy way, not in a way that drew attention, but in a way that quietly took control of the game. I I remember games against Montreal toward the end of the 1960s when the rivalry really started to build. You'd come into the forum, the building already loud before warm-ups were even over, and you knew you were gonna have to play a clean game, and not just physical, not just fast, but clean. Because against him, mistakes didn't look like mistakes. They just looked like him doing what he always did. There was one sequence that stuck with me. He picked up the puck in the neutral zone, nothing dramatic, just a simple touch. I stepped up thinking I could close the lane and force him wide. He didn't accelerate, didn't try to beat me with speed. He just shifted his angle slightly, just enough that my timing was off. By the time I adjusted, he had already moved the puck and the play was developing behind me. No wasted motion, no panic, just precision. That was the difference. Against most players, you could impose your game. You could dictate the pace, use your skating, your instincts. Against him, you felt like you were always reacting even when you thought you were in control. He didn't take the game away from you all at once. He took it in pieces quietly until you realized you weren't the one deciding anything anymore. Playing against him changed how I thought about the game. It made me understand that hockey wasn't just about creating pressure, it was about managing it, about knowing when to push and when to hold back. He showed that control could be just as powerful as speed. I never felt rushed when I watched him, but somehow I always ended up chasing the play anyway. Here's where things got a little more complicated. Playing alongside Phil Esposito gave me a completely different perspective on what greatness actually looked like. Because when you share the ice with someone like that, you don't just see the results. You see everything that leads up to them. From the outside, people saw the goals. They saw the numbers, the celebrations, the way the puck kept finding him night after night. But when you're on the ice with him, especially on those power plays during the early 70s, you start to notice something else. He didn't create space the way most players tried to. He lived in the areas where there wasn't supposed to be space at all. Right in front of the net where everything is messy. Sticks, skates, bodies all colliding in a matter of seconds. That's where he made his living. And it wasn't luck. It was instinct, timing, and a willingness to stay there longer than anyone else could tolerate. There were stretches during the 1970 Stanley Cup run where it felt like every puck we threw toward the crease had a chance because he was there, not waiting, but battling. You'd take a shot from the point, and before it even reached the net, he had already adjusted his position, already anticipated the rebound, already found a way to get his stick free. And it wasn't always pretty. A lot of his goals came through traffic, through deflections, through rebounds that lasted less than a second. But that's exactly why it was so hard to deal with him. You couldn't eliminate him from the play. You could push him, tie up his stick, try to move him out, and somehow he'd still be involved in the outcome. There was one power play shift that stays with me. I had the puck up high looking for a lane. The defense was set nothing obvious, open. So I put it on net more out of habit than expectation. By the time the puck reached the crease, it had already changed direction. He got a piece of it just enough. The goaltender reacted, the rebound dropped, and before anyone else could even locate it, he buried it. The whole sequence took maybe two seconds. That was his game. Quick, relentless, and built around moments that most players never fully understand. Being around him forced me to look at offense differently. It wasn't always about creating the perfect play or finding open ice. Sometimes it was about going into the most difficult area on the rink and staying there long enough for something to happen. He made chaos productive. I learned that greatness doesn't always look smooth. Sometimes it looks like persistence, like being willing to take contact, to fight for position, to stay in the play when everyone else is trying to reset. And even though we were on the same side, there were nights in practice where you realized just how hard he would have been to handle if he'd been wearing a different jersey. Now this is where the game started to shift. When Guy LaFleur came into the picture, you could feel something changing even if you couldn't quite explain it yet. The first time you really watched him carry the puck through the neutral zone, it didn't look rushed. His stride was long, almost effortless hair flowing behind him, but underneath that smoothness was a different kind of speed. Not just straight line speed, but the kind that forced you to make decisions earlier than you wanted to. You'd be standing at the blue line reading the play, thinking you had the angle, and then suddenly the gap was gone. Not because he blew past you in a straight sprint, but because he carried momentum in a way that stretched the entire ice surface. Every defender had to respect it, every shift had to account for it. Games against Montreal in the mid-1970s had a different rhythm because of players like him. The puck didn't stay still for long. It moved quicker, the transitions were sharper, and if you hesitated even slightly, the play was already behind you. There was a sequence in one of those matchups that captured it perfectly. The puck turned over near center ice, nothing dramatic, just a quick change of possession. He picked it up in stride already moving. I stepped up, trying to close the gap before he reached the blue line. For a moment it looked manageable. Then he leaned into his stride just a little more, shifted the puck wide, and suddenly I was adjusting instead of controlling. By the time I recovered, he had already created a chance. That's what he brought to the game. Not chaos like some players, not control like others, but acceleration and decision making. He forced you to process the game faster, whether you were ready or not. Playing against that kind of speed changed how I approached my own game. It wasn't enough to skate well or move the puck quickly. You had to anticipate earlier, read the play sooner, trust your instincts before the situation fully developed. If you waited for confirmation, you were already late. What stood out the most was how natural it all looked. No wasted effort, no visible strain, just flow. And that made it even harder because it didn't give you anything obvious to adjust to. You couldn't key in on one habit or one tendency. The entire approach was fluid. There were nights when you felt like you were in position doing everything right and it still wasn't enough. The pace had changed, and if you didn't change with it, you got left behind. With him the game didn't feel heavier or tighter. It felt faster in a way that stayed with you even after the shift ended. And then there was one name, the one that changed everything. When you talk about where hockey was going, not where it had been, it's impossible not to come back to Wayne Gretzky. I never faced him in the same way I faced the others. By the time he was coming into his own, my time was already winding down. But you didn't need to be on the ice with him to understand what you were seeing. You could feel it just by watching a few shifts. At first it didn't look overwhelming. He wasn't the fastest skater out there. He wasn't the strongest. He didn't overpower anyone physically. If you were judging purely on the traditional things we used to measure players, you might even think you could handle him. But then you watched a little longer. The puck never stayed in one place for him. It moved before pressure arrived. It moved before defenders set their feet. And more importantly, it moved to places you didn't expect. Not risky plays, not hopeful passes, but decisions that seemed one step ahead of everyone else on the ice. There was something about the way he used space that felt completely new. Most players reacted to the game as it unfolded. He seemed to be operating just ahead of it. He'd see a defender close one lane, and before that lane even disappeared, the puck was already somewhere else. Not because he was escaping pressure, but because he had already predicted it. What stood out wasn't a single play, but the pattern, shift after shift, game after game, the same thing kept happening. Teammates didn't just receive passes, they received them in positions where they could act immediately. Goaltenders weren't just beaten, they were pulled out of position before the shot even came. Watching him, you started to realize that the game wasn't being played at the same level anymore. It had moved, the thinking had sped up, the spacing had changed, and the idea of where a fence came from was different. For someone like me who built his game on reading plays and jumping into openings from the back end, that was something you recognized right away. This wasn't just a player executing better. This was someone redefining how the game should be read in the first place. There's a moment I remember watching from the outside early in his career with Edmund. The puck went behind the net, a place where most players would reset, maybe look for a safe option. He didn't. He treated it like an extension of the offensive zone, almost like his own space. From there, everything opened up. Passing lane, shooting angles, movement. It changed how teams defended because suddenly there was no clear boundary anymore. That was the difference. He didn't just play within the structure of the game, he expanded it. I never had to chase him shift after shift the way I did with others. But I understood what he represented. You could see it coming. The next version of hockey, faster in thought, sharper in execution, less predictable in every way. And when you step back and look at everything together, all the players, all the eras, all the different ways the game could be played, he's the one that stands apart. Not because he was stronger, not because he was faster, but because he saw the game in a way no one else did. Looking back now, Gordy Howe, John Bellevaux, Phil Esposito, Guy Lafleur, and Wayne Gretzky, different players, different eras, different ways of approaching the same game. And yet when you line them up in your mind, you start to see a pattern. Each one of them forced something out of you. Howe made you understand the physical limits of the game. Not in theory, but in real time, along the boards in the corners, where every decision had a consequence. Bellevo showed that control could be just as powerful as force, that you didn't always need to rush to take over a game. Esposito changed the way you looked at scoring, turning the most crowded, uncomfortable area on the ice into the most dangerous place to be. LaFleur pushed the pace forward, made you realize that hesitation, even for a moment, could undo an entire shift. And then there was Gretzky. He didn't just take one part of the game and master it. He connected all of it. The space, the timing, the decisions. He made everything feel just a little bit faster, a little bit sharper, a little bit more precise. Not by force, but by understanding maybe that's what separates the greatest from everyone else. It's not about doing one thing better than the rest. It's about seeing the whole picture before anyone else does. I've had people ask me if I could go back and play in a different era against different players. Would I change anything? And the truth is, I don't think I would because every one of those players shaped how I saw the game. They forced adjustments, forced growth, forced you to find another level, whether you thought you had one or not. That's what rivals do. That's what greatness does. It stays with you. Long after the noise fades, long after the crowd is gone, long after the final horn, you remember the feeling, the pressure, the moments where the game slipped just slightly out of your control. And every once in a while you remember the players who made that happen. That's what they leave you with.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

I often think back to Jack Nicholas, who, you know, when we were growing up was the standard. Yeah. And to me, like oftentimes you'll hear an excuse from a player, coach, whomever, when they don't behave the right way. Well, I'm I'm competitive. Like, no, that's not what competitive means. You can't use competitiveness as an excuse for bad behavior. Like, to me, a true competitor, and I don't count myself as one of those, but a true competitor understands that I can lose. Like, I may get beat here. I'm gonna do everything I can within the rules to win, but I may get beat. And one of the things that I think showed the understanding of competition of Jack Nicholas was how he acted when he lost. You know, he put his arm around the winner and said, You were just too good. I couldn't beat you today.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

As I mentioned at the start of the episode today, we're going to have a fun activity, and you can get lots of members of family and friends involved with this. It's a survival simulation game, and it has to be done with no help from AI or Google or any of those helpful things we've come to know and love. You need to do this all on your own. So here's the situation You and your companions have just survived the crash of a small plane. Unfortunately, both the pilot and co-pilot perished in the crash. It is mid-January and you are in northern Canada. The daily temperature in Celsius terms is minus thirty-two. And the nighttime temperature is minus forty, and that's the same on either scale, Celsius or Fahrenheit, by the way. No extra charge for that. There is snow on the ground, and the countryside is wooded with several creeks crisscrossing the area. The nearest town is twenty miles away, so that's gonna make it uh twenty-eight or so kilometers. You are all dressed in city clothes appropriate for a business meeting. Your group of survivors manage to salvage the following items. You may wish to put pen or pencil in hand for this, so here they are, and I will repeat them. A ball of steel wool, a small axe or hatchet, a loaded forty-five caliber pistol, one can of Crisco shortening, newspapers, one per person, cigarette later with no fluid, extra shortened hands for each survivor, a twenty by twenty-five piece of heavy-duty canvas, a sectional air map of plastic, one quart of one hundred proof whiskey, a compass, and one family sized chocolate bar per person. So here they are again a ball of steel wool, a small axe, a loaded forty five caliber pistol, one can of Crisco shark. A newspaper, one per person, one cigarette lighter but no fluid, extra shirt and pants for each survivor, a twenty by twenty foot piece of heavy-duty canvas, a sectional air map of plastic paper, one quart of a hundred-proof whiskey, a compass, and one family-sized chocolate bar per person. Now here is your task, and you have a full week to work on this. And again, no help, or it's no fun. Your task is to list the above items in order of importance for your survival. List the uses for each. And if you're doing this as a group, then you obviously need to come to an agreement on this. So you may want to do this with others. That would be great. Or you might want to take this challenge on by yourself. Next week's episode, I will give you the order of importance to your survival. You want to put them in order, the one that would be most impactful for your survival to the one that would have the least impact. So that's the survival game for next week. Thank you for joining me behind a pain in the glass podcast. I hope you've enjoyed today's episode. Certainly, the comments that Bobby Orr made about those five gentlemen who played in his era. You can't get enough of uh the history of the National Hockey League. And of course, now that we're into the playoffs, I thought that the hockey fans that listen to the podcast would find it interesting, as well as uh if you're just a casual observer. And then Jay Billis uh with his take on being competitive but doing it with grace. And of course, he used Jack Nicholas. And of course, that survival game. I do hope that you will get together with family or friends, or try it on your own and uh see if you can come up with your list of those items and their relative importance to survival. So until next week, don't forget those wise words of that great North American philosopher Charlie Brown. Don't focus too much on things that make you sad, because there are so many things out there that can make you happy. Until next time.