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Sunday, October 28, 2001

By Dejan Kovacevic, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

No one spins a hockey yarn quite like Frank Orr. He has covered the sport for parts of five decades for the Toronto Star, has written 20 books, including a new biography on Mario Lemieux, "Over Time," and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1989.

He passed through town Wednesday to sign copies of his book at Mellon Arena, and the opportunity was seized to pick his brain for the following list of the best players he has seen in these 10 categories ...

Vision: Tie, Wayne Gretzky and Lemieux. "They see things no one else has ever seen, slowed the game down and dissected it. I've always said that if Wayne or Mario concentrated at the start of the season on a game in February, they could tell you what would happen at the 8:00 mark of the third period."

Skating: Yvan Cournoyer. "Great player for Montreal in the '60s and '70s. For sheer, straightaway speed, no one touched him. Mike Gartner is up there, too, but his problem was that when he went faster than 75 percent of his ability, his feet were going a lot faster than his head."

Toughness: Theoren Fleury. "Pound for pound, I've never seen anyone tougher. He's 5 feet 7, and he backs down from no one. I'd also have to add all the Sutter brothers. They all weighed 170 but thought they weighed 240."

Playmaking: Gretzky. "It wasn't just that he could always find the open man. It's that he had no panic point and, as a result, always did something smart with the puck. I'd rank Doug Harvey up there, too, a great defenseman for the Canadiens from the '40s to the '60s. He always moved the puck to the right guy."

Shooting: Bobby Hull. "If you're going for velocity, there's only Al MacInnis. But when you look at how much harder Hull shot the puck than everyone else in the '60s and '70s ... there just wasn't anyone even close."

Goal-scoring: Tie, Lemieux, Mike Bossy. "The thing both had in common was the reach, the way they could extend themselves all different ways to finish a play."

Leadership: Jean Beliveau. "He led all those great Montreal teams of the '50s and '60s, even though he wasn't very vocal. He was just so classy, so elegant, on and off the ice. Everybody wanted to be just like him. Another player from that era who was a great leader was George Armstrong in Toronto. I must say, though, that this concept of leadership is something that's a bit overrated by people in our business. There are so many ways to lead."

Goaltending: Turk Broda. "He won three Cups in a row for the Maple Leafs in the '40s, and he used to say that he was so good in the playoffs because he was too stupid to realize the games were serious. And in the '60s, you have the era of the great goaltender. Jacques Plante, Terry Sawchuk, Glenn Hall, Johnny Bower. I will say that if I had to pick a goalie to win me one game, it would be Bower."

Intelligence: Ken Dryden. "He was a full-time law student while he led Montreal to four straight Cups. What could top that? And another name which might surprise you: Bill Berg. He was so smart and, at the same time, so agitating that he would start every argument on the ice and win every argument. He's got a Ph.D now."

Humor: Bob Plager. "No contest. He had a line for every situation, when he played in St. Louis in the '60s and '70s and even after he was done playing. When he was scouting from a press box, a former player once remarked to him that the game seems to move so much slower the higher up you watch it from overhead. He shot back, 'Yeah, when I watched you, I figured I was on the Starship Enterprise.' "

Dejan Kovacevic can be reached at dkovacevic@ post-gazette.com.