The 1970 Stanley Cup Final was the championship series of the National Hockey League's (NHL) 1969âÂÂ70 season, and the culmination of the 1970 Stanley Cup playoffs. It was a contest between the Boston Bruins and the St. Louis Blues, who appeared in their third consecutive finals series. The Bruins were making their first appearance in the Stanley Cup Final since .
The Bruins swept the Blues to win their first Stanley Cup title since 1941. Bobby Orr scored the Cup-winning goal on Mother's Day against St. Louis' veteran Hall of Fame goalie Glenn Hall, with an assist from close friend and teammate "The Turk" Derek Sanderson, at forty seconds of overtime. The subsequent image of Orr flying through the air, his arms stretched out in victory â (he had been tripped by Blues' defenseman Noel Picard immediately after scoring the goal) â is considered the most famous and recognized hockey image of all time. With the win, the Bruins became the first American team to win the Stanley Cup since the Chicago Black Hawks in . The Blues, who had gone to the Finals their first three years in the league, would eventually lose each of the three series in four-game sweeps. St. Louis would not appear in a Stanley Cup Final again until 2019, where they also faced (and defeated) the Bruins in seven games, ending the second-longest Finals drought in league history.
Boston defeated the New York Rangers 4âÂÂ2 and the Chicago Black Hawks 4âÂÂ0 to advance to the Finals.
St. Louis defeated the Minnesota North Stars 4âÂÂ2 and the Pittsburgh Penguins 4âÂÂ2.
This was the seventh meeting between teams from Boston and St. Louis for a major professional sports championship. This previously happened in two World Series (1946, 1967), and four NBA Finals (1957, 1958, 1960, 1961).
The Boston Bruins tied for first in the East Division with the Chicago Black Hawks with 99 points. The Bruins lost the tiebreaker of wins with 40 to Chicago's 45. The St. Louis Blues finished first in the West Division with 86 points. This was the first playoff meeting between these two teams. In this year's regular-season series, there were three wins for Boston, one for St. Louis and two ties.
At 3:57 of the second period of game one, a hard shot from Fred Stanfield was deflected and struck Jacques Plante in the forehead of his face mask, splitting the mask in half and injuring Plante. Plante was finished for the series. Doctors later said if he hadn't been wearing the mask, he surely would have been killed. Ernie Wakely took over in goal but only held off the Bruins for a few minutes before becoming a rather easy mark for Bruins sharpshooters.
The most commonly seen video clip of Bobby Orr's famous overtime goal ("The Flight") in game four is the American version broadcast on CBS as called by Dan Kelly. This archival clip can be considered a rarity, since surviving kinescopes or videotapes of the telecasts of hockey games from this era usually emanate from CBC's coverage. According to Dick Irvin Jr.'s book My 26 Stanley Cups (Irvin was in the CBC booth with Danny Gallivan during the 1970 Stanley Cup Final), he was always curious why even the CBC typically uses the CBS replay of the Bobby Orr goal (with Dan Kelly's commentary) instead of Gallivan's call. The explanation that Irvin received was that the CBC's master tape of the game (along with others) was thrown away in order to clear shelf space at the network.
The New England Sports Network has played the CBS video of the goal but has used the original WBZ-FM radio call with Fred Cusick and Johnny Peirson.
The 1970 Stanley Cup was presented to Bruins alternate captain Johnny Bucyk by NHL President Clarence Campbell following the Bruins 4âÂÂ3 overtime win over the Blues in game four.
The following Bruins players and staff had their names engraved on the Stanley Cup
1969âÂÂ70 Boston Bruins