WREN BLAIR remembers it almost as clearly as the last time he visited his friendly banker with a satchel of money under each arm — which was probably .yesterday.

He was the general manager of the Oshawa Generals in the spring of '66. His team coached by Armand Guidolin, was in Shawinigan Falls for a playoff game.

“I don't know … I think it was the third game of the series.” Blair was saying yesterday, “and Bobby gets a shot on his knee. He doesn't tell anybody about it because he's Bobby Orr, right? He gets another shot on his knee in the fourth game, and now we're in the Memorial Cup finals against Edmonton. We're also in trouble, because it looks as if Bobby can't play.

“Weston Adams phones me and he says: 'Look, whatever you do, don't use that kid in the series. I don't care if you don't win. I don't care if you don't score a goal, but don't dress him.'”

Blair told Orr he wasn't going to be dressed — with the predictable reaction. Orr blew up. So did Bobby's father, Doug.

“Lookit,” Doug Orr said to Blair, “you may not know my son too well, but one thing you're not going to do is keep him out of this series. He wants to play.”

“Weston Adams doesn't want him to dress.” said Blair patiently.

“As far as I know,” thundered Orr. “Bobby isn't playing with the Boston Bruins. Not yet. anyway. This i? the Oshawa Generals, right?”

“I've got Bobby and his father on one side.” Blair was saying yesterday, “and I've got Mr. Adams on the other. I say to Bep. ‘Okay, we'll dress the kid. but make sure of one thing: don't send him on the ice.

He's one of a kind

A lot of professional hockey coaches were to learn later, as Guidolin learned that night, that it is one thing to have ideas about Orr, but it is infinitely more difficult to employ them.

“The game is going on,” Blair was saying, “and each time Bep turns his back on Bobby — whoops! he's out on the ice. He calls him back, and a little later. there he goes again Adams is screaming about suing me. but Bobby keeps jumping out there. Anyway. pretty soon, even Bobby realizes he can't play and when he doesn't play, that's the end of the series for us.

“That's when it all may have, started with his knees,” says Blair. “I wish somebody had told us about him getting hurt against Shawinigan. Hell, that was one series we could have won without him. “

That was more than a decade ago, and Orr was to receive a lot more knocks on his knees before reaching the tragic situation in which he finds himself today. He has been the best anybody has ever seen, and it's tragic that someone so gifted has been hurt so often that instead of inheriting the great rewards he deserves, he now finds himself the eye of a swirling controversy that may never be resolved to everyone's satisfaction.

It is likely he will be signed by the Chicago Black Hawks. Everything points to it. They will sign him even though lie has made it plain his knee — slashed by a surgeon's knife so often — is empty and. by his own admission, a source 4>f pain to him daily. Seven months after his fifth operation, the pain still is there, yet it is a measure of his greatness that the Black Hawks are prepared to gamble on him. No other player in any sport would be considered if he announced to potential employers they were taking a chance by signing him, yet the Black Hawks will do it.

It's only the beginning

The terrible thing about it all is that if the Hawks do sign him, that's only the beginning.

He can expect to be asked about his knee from day to day. He will be asked about it from game to game. They are wondering about it at these meetings and they will whisper about it long after these meetings have ended.

It is so bad that even while he has made it plain his knee is bothering him … even though he has instructed his lawyer, Alan Eagleson, to make it as clear as possible that anybody who signs him is taking a chance, people wonder why it is he has chosen this moment in time to deliver his pronouncement.

It is my view that no athlete can be more forthright and honest than to take the attitude Orr has adopted. His knee hurts and he wants everybody, particularly the people who would like to sign him, to know that he is in pain. I can't find anything sinister in his anouncement. It's direct. It's honest. It's Orr. Yet people are reading sly. little messages into it. Why now? Why not last week or a month ago?

This business has its hills and valleys. The people in it have been known to bend the truth now and then, which doesn't make them unique. That doesn't necessarily mean that everybody in the business palms cards or steals pennies from a tin cup.

What I'm saying is that it wouldn't be a bad idea if people accepted what Orr is trying to say. He would like to play and he will play as long as his knee doesn't hurt too much. Isn't that clear enough?

Orr has earned the right to be believed.

by Red Fisher THE MONTREAL STAR