Courtesy WIVB

(February 10, 2010) On Tuesday night, the Buffalo Sabres added two names to the team's Hall of Fame---one of them is former Sabres coach Joe Crozier. The other—Jim Lorentz, a longtime Sabre who made his mark on the ice and in the broadcast booth

Lorentz won a Stanley Cup with the 1970 Boston Bruins. He had a front row seat for Bobby Orr’s famous cup winning goal in overtime.

“Yeah, I was on the bench,” Lorentz told News 4 Sports. “I was pretty quick to get on the ice to congratulate him, it was something else."

Lorentz came to Buffalo in a 1972 trade, and he spent seven seasons with the Sabres, averaging 19-goals per year. But his biggest play came in game three of the 1975 Stanley Cup Finals, when he knocked a bat out of mid-air, at Memorial Auditorium.

“I was waiting for a face off, and happened to look back down the ice, and I saw the bat coming down,” he remembers. “By this time it didn’t have much energy left and was actually flying in a straight line. I just reached up and whacked it out of the air, and it fell to the ice. And I still do remember everyone looking at each other, and thinking, ok, now who's gonna pick it up.”

When his playing career ended, Lorentz spent the next 26-years as a Sabres broadcaster. He learned the ropes from the great Ted Darling and worked side by side with Rick Jeanneret.

“Ted was your classic play by play guy,” Lorentz says, “and I watched him night and after night. The work ethic he had was as good as anyone I’ve ever seen, always prepared, and he really taught me a lot. Rick, on the other hand, is more of the entertainer. But make no mistake about it, Rick is totally prepared for every game, and is a very, very bright individual"

Induction into the Sabres Hall of Fame is the ultimate recognition for Jim Lorentz. It is recognition of his work as a player and as a broadcaster.

“It’s a one time thing,” he says. “It’s not something that's gonna go away in a month or a year. It’s not a trophy where you have your name on it, and maybe somebody else will win it the next year. It’s in perpetuity, and when you think of it, or at least when I do in those terms, it's very very humbling and I’m deeply honored."

Lorentz is the 37th inductee to the Sabres Hall of Fame.

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