Retiring from the game on Thursday afternoon, Colton Orr exits hockey at a point when the services of players like him are no longer required.

Fighting continues to plummet in the NHL as the game gets faster and concussion awareness rises. The enforcer’s role has grown all but extinct.

Orr, who finished with more than 100 fights in 477 regular season NHL games, is now 34 and looking forward to the next stage of his life, but he still sees a place for fighting in the game even as the tide turns in a different direction.

“Yeah, I still definitely think there’s that role for a guy who’s going to look out for their teammates and a warrior who’s going to go to bat any time someone needs help,” said Orr, who played 10 games this season with the AHL’s Stockton Heat. “I don’t think it’s going to go away completely.”

Orr’s role was best epitomized during his time in Toronto, which began in 2009 when then-president and GM Brian Burke sought “pugnacity”, “truculence” and “belligerence” for the Maple Leafs.

He signed Orr for four years at $1 million US per season.

Orr played in all 82 games his first year with the club and fought regularly, but amid injuries and an evolving game that was predicated more on speed and skill, his place on the ice gradually diminished. Burke angrily decried the rise of “rats” when he was forced to demote a little-used Orr in the winter of 2012.

It was a sign of things to come, if not right away for Orr.

After trimming down from a heavyweight frame, Orr had a brief NHL revival under then-Leafs head coach Randy Carlyle, dressing in all but four games of the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season. He was gone from the league less than two years later, playing his final NHL game on the last day of the 2014-15 campaign in a symbolic show of gratitude from the organization.

Orr’s perceived value in earlier years was derived from the protection he provided his teammates.

“They supported me all the time and made sure they let me know that they did appreciate what I did for them and that they did like having me there, knowing that I would have their back through anything,” said Orr, who was undrafted and started his NHL career with the Boston Bruins.

Teammates in Toronto often raved about Orr’s influence in the dressing room, a role, he says, grew on him with age. He tried to be more vocal in time and extend a helping hand to younger players even as his place on the ice grew to be less and less influential.

Orr, who once fought as many as 36 times in one AHL season, said he hadn’t thought about the long-term effects of fighting on his body. He’s unsure of what his next move will be, though he’d like to remain involved with hockey. Coaching, scouting, he wasn’t really sure at this point.

He exits as one of the last remaining dinosaurs from an age when fighting was seen as imperative for the protection of the game’s integrity, a thought that’s diminished in this era of numbers.

Orr says he walks away in peace.

“It’s been such a fun ride so it definitely still is hard,” said Orr, a Manitoba native, “but I am looking forward to the next part of it and maybe not having to take all those bumps and bruises all the time.”