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, and a photographer catches him horizontal in mid-air.
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 the goaltender Glenn Hall from close range.
As the puck crossed the line, the St. Louis defenceman Noel Picard's stick caught Orr's skates and lifted him horizontal off the ice with his arms still raised in celebration. Ray Lussier got the photograph more or less by accident: another photographer's flash had failed moments earlier, which left Lussier the only one positioned to take it.
It is known simply as 'The Goal', or the 'Flying Goal', and it is still sold as a poster and reprinted in histories of the sport more than fifty years later. Boston had their first Cup in 29 years, with their best player airborne at the exact moment they won it.
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