FanHouse BobbyOrr

Before Bobby Orr entered the NHL way back in 1966, the idea of a defenseman scoring 100 points would have been considered lunacy. After all, forwards were rarely coming within spitting distance of the century mark, and defensemen were never really used as offensive weapons. Orr, of course, changed all of that, and not only became the first rearguard to ever lead the NHL in scoring, he eclipsed the 100-point plateau an unthinkable six times.

Only four other defensemen have ever accomplished the feat (Paul Coffey, Al MaCinnis, Brian Leetch and Denis Potvin) while only Coffey did it more than once (five times).

Will we ever see another one?

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On Thursday, the NHL announced the three finalists for the James Norris Memorial Trophy as the league's top defenseman, while Detroit's Nicklas Lidstrom, Boston's Zdeno Chara and Washington's Mike Green were the top three vote-getters.

Lidstrom has won the award six of the past seven years -- including three in a row -- while he might actually face some competition this time around.

It's always fun to look at full-season projections early in the year, and laugh at the ridiculous numbers they present (or perhaps it's just me that finds that slightly amusing. It's probably just me). Still, the Pittsburgh Penguins have played 30 games this season, and center Evgeni Malkin has produced a league-leading 37 assists. The only other player in the league to have 30 at this point is his teammate, Sidney Crosby, who has 31.

If Malkin were to continue his current pace he would finish the season with 101 assists, becoming only the fourth different player in league history to hit the century mark for helpers in a single season. The other players are, of course, the usual suspects: Wayne Gretzky (11 times), Mario Lemieux (once) and Bobby Orr (once). Gretzky did it last, during the 1990 season, when he registered 122 for the Kings.

What makes Malkin's assist numbers so impressive thus far is the fact his wingers, on most nights, are Petr Sykora and Ruslan Fedotenko. Not exactly the same as having Jari Kurri skating next to you every night, now is it?

Kurt Kauper grew up obsessed with Boston Bruins legend Bobby Orr. Now 41, Kauper has seen that obsession to its logical end: Creating a 7 1/2-foot-tall oil painting of Orr's youthful head on another man's nude body (images are SFW). The Boston Globe reported today about Kauper's latest collection showing at the Deitch Projects gallery in New York, titled "Everybody Knew That Canadians Were The Best Hockey Players." Somewhere, Phil Housley and Pat LaFontaine weep.

Orr didn't comment for Globe reporter Geoff Edgers's story, and former Bruins center Derek Sanderson -- who is also featured in the buff via Kauper's imagination -- refused to look at the artist's depiction of him standing near his locker holding his stick (snicker, snicker). "Hey, you know, he has poetic license, he can pretty much bloody well do what he bloody pleases," Sanderson told the Globe. And while the paper quotes several art aficionados who support and defend Kauper's work, I think I like former Bruin Brad Park's frank assessment best: "I see a picture of Bobby with some genitals, and a picture of Turk with some genitals. That's hard to take."

Kauper's blending of celebrity with nudity is nothing new in the art world -- witness John Currin's career-making portrait of Bea Arthur -- but this combination of athletes and male nudes causes an undeniable cultural conflict. Hockey is as homophobic a sport as you'll find; witness the conservative reactions to Juri Tlusty's youthful indiscretion, especially from the ironically named (in this instance) Damien Cox of the Toronto Star. Thomas Garvey of The Hub Review -- no fan of Kauper's, by the way -- believes The Globe's reporting on this art show is cheap, titillating gay-baiting:

If these were paintings of women, would the Globe still be giggling? Somehow I don't think so. (As for Kauper's stuff operating as "art" - please; only Geoff Edgers could pretend that! Unless, of course, he's merely dangling red gay meat in front of the Globe's Neanderthal audience in a Herald-like maneuver - the probable explanation, actually.)