1978 Bally Bobby Orr POWER PLAY pinball machine

Here's a gameplay video of a 1978 Bally Bobby Orr Power Play pinball machine.

When it comes to hockey and pinball, the choices are pretty limited. We Canadians love our hockey and finding a pinball machine with a hockey theme is not easy. In reality, there's only three "modern" (post-1970) pinball machines with a hockey theme -- 1972 Williams Olympic Hockey, 1978 Bally Power Play and 1984 Gottlieb Ice Fever. Now, I've never played Ice Fever, but I do know it's not easy to find. I have played Olympic Hockey, and, let me tell ya, it's not much of a player. So that leaves Power Play. And here we are.

Power play has a lot of charm. It's an early solid state machine, which means it's got Bally's electronic hardware combined with the traditional Bally chime box for sound. That's pretty cool.

In addition, it has two banks of four drop targets up the middle. Drops are good. The placement of the upper flippers allows for strategic shooting of those drop banks. The pops move the ball quickly around the upper part of the playfield and the up-post between the flippers is a neat feature that Bally used fairly frequently in the 70's.

While this game is pretty decent, there isn't a lot going on. Shoot the drops, shoot the drops, shoot the drops. That's about all she wrote. Still, it's fun to shoot drops and earn extra balls and replays and whatnot. After all, isn't that what pinball is all about?

The art package is really good on this game. I'm a fan of the cabinet art and the backglass is perfect for the theme and era. However, in spite of the "goodness" of the artwork, it's quite confusing, except perhaps to the most die-hard of hockey fans. As far as I can tell, the artwork is not the Chicago Blackhawks playing against Team Canada. Clearly that would make no sense. Instead, I think it's a tribute to the fact that Bobby played in the 1976 Canada Cup Tournament, the same year he signed to the Blackhawks. So the art is not so much a depiction of an actual event, but simply an artist's rendition of Bobby's activities in the year leading up to this game's manufacture? Totally guessing here. Also, with Bally Manufacturing was located in Chicago.

Anyway, in conclusion, if you're looking for a hockey theme in a pinball machine, Power Play is your best bet. Bally made over 13,000 Power Play machines, which is a way above average production run for a pinball machine, so there are lots of these machines out there. And it's actually a fun game.

For more information on this machine, see here:
http://ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=1858