Bobby Orr Biog

Looking for a good hockey book to read on the dock this summer?

Stephen Brunt's book, Searching For Bobby Orr, is the next best thing to the official Bobby Orr biography, which is reportedly five years away.

Brunt’s book is a big bestseller, cashing in on the magic of Bobby Orr. 

However, Brunt fails to mention the strong Muskoka links to Orr's early development years.

Searching For Bobby Orr tells the life story of the most famous No. 4, but there is a lot of focus on his early years in Parry Sound and on his coach, Bucko McDonald, who had a huge impact on hockey in Muskoka.

Nobody has ever noted that Bobby Orr spent most of his formative years playing hockey in Muskoka and against teams from Gravenhurst, Bracebridge, and Huntsville.

From the time he started playing for the Parry Sound Shamrocks squirts, at age five, until the time he left the Parry Sound bantams to play Jr. A in Oshawa, Orr had a good decade of playing hockey in Muskoka and against teams the Indians, Bears, and Huskies.

Orr started playing Jr. A at age 14 and moved to Oshawa the next year. Until he made the move to the Jr. A Generals, he played most of his hockey in a league made up of the Original Four: Bracebridge, Gravenhurst, Huntsville, and Parry Sound.

Brunt, the Toronto sportswriter, gives a great deal of credit for the discovery and early development of the young hockey star to his peewee coach in Parry Sound, a former NHLer known as “Bucko” McDonald.

Brunt says McDonald was the one who got Orr to play defence, instead of forward, which seemed counter-intuitive to Bobby Orr's father and most other people, since the young Bobby was not big and he was a great skater. Small, fast, hockey players were usually made forwards and the big, slower skaters, played defence.

Brunt also gives “Bucko” credit for letting Orr play defence in his own, original, style, which was the opposite of the 'stay at home' defenceman everyone in hockey was familiar with. Bucko played defence the traditional way in the NHL.

Wilfred Kennedy "Bucko" McDonald was a professional hockey player, a hockey coach, and a politician. He played in the NHL for the Detroit Red Wings, Toronto Maple Leafs, and New York Rangers. He won three Stanley Cups in his career, in 1936 and 1937 with Detroit and in 1942 with Toronto.

In 1945, he was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the Ontario riding of Parry Sound/Muskoka as a Liberal and was re-elected in 1949 and 1953. After leaving politics, he returned to hockey as the head coach of the Rochester Americans. He later returned to his roots in Muskoka/Parry Sound to coach minor hockey.

He coached Bobby Orr when he was 11 and 12, playing peewee and bantam hockey for the Parry Sound Shamrocks.  Bucko is the one who got Bobby Orr to play defence. Bobby Orr’s father questioned the decision, but Bucko simply responded to Doug Orr that Bobby was born to play defence.     

Bucko was a defensive blueliner for 11 NHL seasons and known as Bashing Bucko McDonald because of his exuberant body checking. He played in the longest NHL game ever, in the 1936 playoffs when the Red Wings played the Montreal Maroons for nine periods. By the end of the sixth period of overtime, McDonald was credited with 37 knock downs.

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