No one was calling Gary Doak a key cog in the B's defensive corps back in the Bobby Orr or Brad Park eras.
You can be getting regular ice time, but 3rd pairing is 3rd pairing. Lesser among equals. That's all I'm saying.
Yeah, it's been a tough few months for the DRW Alumni Association. First Ted Lindsay, now Red Kelly, and of course not that long ago, it was good ol' #9 himself too. Kelly retired as a player before I had any recollection of him playing (and he left DRW before I was born), but my memory of him was as the head coach in Toronto in the mid-'70's, one year in which his team took the defending Cup champion Flyers to 7 games when he was using some bizarre "pyramid power" schtick to offset the Broad St. Bullies.
I did see the following from Stan Fischler yesterday (linked below), where he makes the case for Red as the progenitor of Bobby Orr, and perhaps the most unique superstar in the long history of the NHL, being in the midst of two dynasties (DRW in the '50's as a defenseman, then with Toronto in the '60's as a center, winning 4 Cups apiece at each destination). I never saw the guy, and footage of his DRW days is limited and grainy, but he was apparently the goods. And he wore #4, which is a go-to number for elite all-time great defensemen.
https://thehockeynews.com/news/article/stan-fischler-remembering-red-kelly-a-superstar-like-no-other
Actually, I WOULD call Gary Doak a key cog on some of those late 1960s and 1970s Bruins teams. Really nice guy, too, as he was one of the B's who would sign stuff for us kids after Saturday matinee games, which my parents let me attend by taking the Michaud bus from Durham, $2.40 round trip. He might have played on the second D pair in a couple of those later seasons in the late '70s. TvR would be so lucky to hang in the NHL for Gary's 18 seasons. R.I.P. Gary Doak, two years ago, way too young at 71.
