Orr brothers nearly fighting in game among odd hockey tales

Legendary hockey reporter Stan Fischler writes a weekly scrapbook for NHL.com. Fischler, known as "The Hockey Maven," shares his humor and insight with readers each Wednesday.
This week, a hat trick of odd hockey tales.

"Believe it or not."
"Incredible but true."
Call them what you will but some events that have taken place in the hockey world -- off-ice as well as on -- have been unusual to say the least.
How about Hall of Fame hockey brothers Buck and Frank Boucher playing against Hall of Fame baseball players Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees?
Their meeting on the baseball diamond took place in the fall of 1930 at a stadium in Hull, Quebec, across the river from Ottawa, Ontario, home of the Boucher family.
Ruth and Gehrig were on an offseason barnstorming tour while the Bouchers were working their farm prior to leaving for their respective NHL training camps, Frank with the New York Rangers and Buck, the Montreal Maroons.
"Buck and I were invited to play," Frank later revealed to me when he was general manager of the Rangers in 1954-55. "Naturally, we accepted because this was a big deal. The Hull ballpark overflowed for Babe and Lou.
"Even though we were baseball amateurs, there was a lot of tension surrounding the game. Naturally, the big attraction was Babe and the fans came to see him belt home runs."
As it happened Buck wound up in center field, a position he had never played before. He also was using one of Frank's gloves, which intensified Buck's challenge.
Curiously, the Hull pitcher had The Babe buffaloed on many deliveries and Ruth was getting miffed over his rare slump. Now it was the top of the ninth inning with The Sultan of Swat at bat for the last time.
The pitch was a juicy one that enticed Babe to swing. The crowd was transfixed as the horsehide sailed deep to right center with Buck in hot pursuit.
"Buck was playing way back in deepest center and toward right," Frank Boucher recalled. "As the ball started to come down it appeared that Buck might have a shot at it although we all knew he was no outfielder."
While the ball was descending, Buck misjudged it. He ran several loose little circles under it and, finally, in a last desperate moment, stabbed across his body, one-handing it in the webbing for the out.
"By then," Frank remembered, "Ruth was on his way to second. When he saw that the catch had been made, Babe was dumbfounded."
While the crowd went wild with joy, the Yankees icon was temporarily mystified.
"At that point," Frank concluded, "Babe just laughed and thumbed his nose at Buck. Meanwhile, my brother just stared at the ball in amazement!"

Brotherly love

During Bobby Orr's prime as a superstar defenseman for the Boston Bruins, a reporter went to Parry Sound, Ontario to interview his mother, Arva Orr.
The interviewer asked Mrs. Orr, "What do you think of your son?" The, "son," of course, was Bobby.
Arva surprised him when she replied, "Which one?"
Turns out that Bobby had two brothers, including Ron, who was older by one year. And the elder Orr played hockey too but not as well as Bobby.
Ron never had it in mind to play professionally but he did play Junior C hockey when his kid brother starred for the Junior A Oshawa Generals. And once, the Orr brothers faced each other in an exhibition game.
As a matter of fact, they almost fought each other that night.
"A fight broke out," Ron remembered, "and I grabbed Bobby and he grabbed me. He never hit me though."
Ron wound up opening a business in Parry Sound while the kid brother revolutionized defense in the NHL, won the Stanley Cup twice and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1979.
"They say there's only one good hockey player in a family," Ron confessed. "In our family it was Bobby!"

A New York Mayor and his traveling hockey Cup

Hockey was the favorite sport of Gentleman Jimmy Walker, New York City's dashing, debonair mayor during the "Roaring Twenties."
Walker loved hockey and, especially, the Rangers. He sat directly behind coach Lester Patrick's bench when they played their first game at (old) Madison Square Garden to start the 1926-27 season.
A year earlier, Walker donated a trophy to New York's Met League champs, the Knickerbockers. When the league disbanded the Walker Cup was claimed by Madison Square Garden and put in storage.
In 1933, Rangers president John Reed Kilpatrick placed the trophy back in competition for the Eastern Amateur Hockey League (EAHL), and the Atlantic City Sea Gulls were the first winners in 1933-34.
Like the Stanley Cup, The Walker trophy had a zany life. Once it was stolen from Madison Square Garden and a reward was posted. A few days later, Rangers coach Lester Patrick discovered it in the window of a nearby Eighth Avenue pawn shop.
During the 1942-43 season, Walker and his Cup made it to center ice at Madison Square Garden. In a grand ceremony "Beau James," as he was often called, personally presented it to that season's EAHL champs, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutters.

Jimmy Walker presents the Walker Cup to the 1943 EAHL champion U.S. Coast Guard Cutters
Rather appropriately, Gentleman Jim handed the trophy to Cutters captain Art Coulter, who had helped the Rangers win the Stanley Cup in 1940.
Finally, in 1946 -- the year Jimmy Walker died -- the trophy was captured by the EAHL's New York Rovers, the Rangers' farm team.
"The Rovers were Walker's second favorite team," said Patrick. "The first being the Rangers!"
Walker photo courtesy of Stan Fischler