from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,

Don Lynch, a 34-year-old Marine captain at the time, was sitting in the back of the plane as the rest of the passengers boarded the flight at Logan.

“Last row, cramped, sitting right next to Fred Cusick,’’ Lynch recalled the other day from his home in North Dallas. “All of a sudden, I look up, and here they come . . . Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito . . . the whole Bruins team, loading up the plane for the game in Minnesota.’’

Lynch, now 75 and nearly 20 years retired as a Marine major general, still holds the proof of his memorable, serendipitous encounter. At the urging of Cusick, then the voice of the Bruins on Channel 38, Lynch grabbed a copy of the March 1974 Playboy magazine, walked it up the aisle, and asked the boys in Black and Gold if they would sign the cover....

Random episodes such as Lynch experienced rarely, if ever, exist anymore in the pro sports industry. The Bruins, like most sports franchises, shifted exclusively to charter flights by the mid or late ’80s. In the late ’70s, when I often booked the same commercial flights as the Bruins as a beat reporter, I witnessed dozens of those chance, in-air autograph sessions.

Fans loved it. Players, for the most part, accepted it as part of the landscape, even an obligation. Most of them seemed to like it. Not hard to imagine the fun-loving Esposito gleefully unfurling the centerfold and scratching out his name.

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