Don Cherry turned up at Phil Esposito‘s hotel room in Vancouver on November 7, 1975, wearing pajamas and accompanied by Bobby Orr. Esposito took one look at the pair of them and worked out what was coming.
He also had one condition, which he announced before Cherry could get to the details.
“I’ve been traded, haven’t I? If you tell me it’s New York, I’m going to jump out the window,” Esposito recalled saying, per Bleacher Report.
Orr was standing beside that window. Cherry didn’t miss a beat.
“Bob, open the window,” he said.
Phil Esposito’s last three full seasons in Boston:
| Season | Games | Goals | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1972-73 | 78 | 55 | 130 |
| 1973-74 | 78 | 68 | 145 |
| 1974-75 | 79 | 61 | 127 |
Why was Phil Esposito traded to the Rangers?
The deal sent Esposito and Carol Vadnais to New York for Jean Ratelle, Brad Park and Joe Zanussi, and was considered the biggest blockbuster in league history at the time. Cherry’s own explanation in The History of the Boston Bruins was that Esposito didn’t fit the system, so he had to go.
What made it unbearable was what had happened weeks earlier. Esposito had just agreed to a new contract with Boston for considerably less than the WHA was offering, and had passed on a no-trade clause after general manager Harry Sinden gave his word that he would never be dealt to the Rangers.
READ MORE: Bobby Orr’s perfect nickname when playing with the Bruins
The punchline has been disputed for fifty years. Esposito has told the open-the-window version repeatedly, including in his own book, while Orr has maintained that Cherry actually told him to get away from the window, and that it was one of the few times he was annoyed with his coach. Both tellings have been in circulation ever since.
Esposito did not jump. He averaged 37 goals across four full seasons in New York, helped the Rangers reach the 1979 Stanley Cup Final and retired in 1981, later telling Cherry he had been made to play there.
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