Tribute to their teams
A pair of Newfoundland men have turned their basements into odes to their favourite NHL clubs
Wayne Bishop’s Boston Bruins fandom starts from a place where many Bruins fans start. It starts with Bobby Orr. For the Bay Roberts resident, there was no one quite the legendary Bruins defenceman. Bishop was five-yearsold when he first saw Orr whirl around the ice.
From his seat in front of the family television, he was enthralled with the way Orr navigated and controlled the game on Hockey Night in Canada.
From that point on, the Bruins were his team.
“When you grow up with ‘Hockey Night in Canada,’ CBC and Saturday night was an event,” said the now 66-year-old Bishop. “Once I saw Bobby Orr floating around the ice and controlling the game, I was hooked.”
His face lights up when he starts talking about his Bruins. It gets even happier when he’s showing off the collection of memorabilia he has compiled over the years.
That memorabilia is on display in the downstairs rec room of the family home.
Opening the door to the basement, a large wooden bear, complete with a Bruins jersey covering its chest and a Sherwood hockey stick between its hands, greets anyone who enters.
It was carved from a piece of wood and given to Bishop as a present by his friend Walt Mercer. A signed Bruins hat rests on its head, although that isn’t a part of the carving.
From there, your eyes dart to a large-signed picture of Bobby Orr cradling the Stanley Cup. Bishop picked that up from a Don Cherry’s restaurant in Happy Valley-goose Bay.
Each wall of the room is a mixture of jerseys, books, framed photos, and hockey cards. These pieces are on shelves behind a corner bar, on ledges all-round the room and in a three-level glass display case that his wife Yvonne
“When you grow up with ‘Hockey Night in Canada,’ CBC and Saturday night was an event … Once I saw Bobby Orr floating around the ice and controlling the game, I was hooked.”
Wayne Bishop Bay Roberts
got him several years ago.
In that case, there are displays for the last couple of Bruin Stanley Cup winners made up of pucks, team photos and other pieces.
There is even a record player that is in the collection with the sole purpose of playing a Bobby Orr instructional vinyl record.
There are even a pair of blankets on the couch in the middle of a room with the Boston Bruins logo on them.
“I’ve been collecting since I was 10-years-old,” said Bishop.
Bishop has spent many a night watching his beloved Boston Bruins in his downstairs rec room.