Cherry and Orr to Coach the 2010 Home Hardware CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game
Friday - December 04, 2009 
Toronto, ON – The Canadian Hockey League in association with Home Hardware Stores Limited today announced that Canadian hockey icons Don Cherry and Bobby Orr will serve as coaches in the 2010 Home Hardware CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game in Windsor, ON. This season will mark the 11th meeting in the historic coaching rivalry between Cherry and Orr in this event which celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. This contest will represent a home game for Cherry who played junior hockey in Windsor with the Spitfires. This comes one year following the game in Oshawa, ON, the city where Orr played his junior hockey and improved his head-to-head coaching record to 7-3 over Cherry with a 6-1 victory last season. Cherry emerged victorious with a 9-3 win in the first of six-straight meetings when the event made its debut in 1996 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, ON. Cherry also participated without Orr back in 2005 and was victorious over coaching opponent John Davidson. Following the 2006 contest the CHL presented the Don Cherry and Bobby Orr Home Hardware CHL/NHL Top Prospects Trophy for the first time to the winning team. Engraved on the award are the names of every player to ever participate in this prestigious event. Cherry, a native of Kingston, ON, has been the star of Hockey Night in Canada’s Coach’s Corner for nearly 20 years. He coached in the NHL with the Boston Bruins and Colorado Rockies from 1974 to 1980 coaching Orr in his first season behind the Bruins bench and part of the 1975-76 season where he won the Jack Adams Trophy as the NHL's Coach of the Year. In 480 games as a NHL coach he has a won-lost-tied record of 250-153-77. Cherry played his junior hockey with the Windsor Spitfires in 1951-52 before competing as a member of the Barrie Flyers’ 1953 Memorial Cup winning team. This season Cherry has been active in supporting OHL clubs with Military Appreciation and Remembrance Day ceremonies in Kingston and Mississauga, ON. Orr, a native of Parry Sound, ON, was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1979 after playing 12 seasons in the NHL with the Boston Bruins and the Chicago Blackhawks recording 915 points on 270 goals and 645 assists. A winner of two Stanley Cup Championships with the Bruins, Orr also captured two NHL scoring titles and was selected winner of the Hart Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player three times and won a record eight-straight James Norris Trophy awards presented annually to the NHL's top defenceman. In 1999 Orr was selected to the MasterCard All-time CHL team and last season had his number two jersey retired by the OHL’s Oshawa Generals. The 40 players that will participate in the 2010 Home Hardware CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game will be announced later in December. |