It's 60 for number 4

Today is the 60th birthday of Boston sports legend Bobby Orr, who helped the Bruins to a pair of Stanley Cups and permanently changed the game of hockey.

Orr was signed by the Bruins when he was just 12 years old and came to town six years later as the golden boy who would change the fortunes of the lowly B's, and he delivered. Boston won titles in the 1969-70 season -- capped by Orr's winning goal that is immortalized in the photo -- and again in 1971-72.

Orr won eight straight Norris trophies as the league's best defenseman and set records for scoring from that position, but bad knees in the pre-arthroscopic surgery era meant that his career was eventually cut short.

Back in the early 1970s the Bruins were the team in Boston. Orr was, in the words of Globe columnist Bob Ryan, "a rock star," as were teammates Phil Esposito, Derek Sanderson, Gerry Cheevers, John Bucyk, Wayne Cashman, John McKenzie and Ken Hodge. The most popular game that we played back then was street hockey, with an orange "Espo ball" and a cheap hockey stick (just as the kids are in the flashback scene, filmed in East Boston, from the movie Mystic River).

The Bruins may be overshadowed now by the Red Sox, the Patriots and the Celtics, but for a while this was their town and it started with Bobby Orr.