Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores (30 page)

“It was incredible that this little kid, who looked like he shouldn't be playing with the big guys, ran the show for the entire game,” said Lynn Patrick, the Bruins' general manager at the time, years later when he held the same job with the St. Louis Blues. “There were few players in the NHL who could feather a pass the way he could at 12.”

SHOOTING LOW

Orr became the most scouted player in hockey because, at that time, NHL teams could tie up young players at 14. Representatives of all six NHL clubs were regular visitors to Parry Sound games and the Orr home. The most persistent was Wren Blair, a Bruin scout who would be GM of the Oshawa Generals when that team returned to top level junior hockey. Years later, Doug Orr revealed that it was Bobby himself who decided the Bruins were his club. “He saw that they were well down in the NHL standings and one day he said that he could probably get to the NHL quicker than
with one of the teams at the top of the league with a lot of talent,” he said.

SERVING IN THE 'SHWA

At 14, Orr joined the Generals in the Toronto Metro Junior A League, playing against boys as old as 20. But his skill, smarts and anticipation allowed him to survive. His ability to read and react to the opposition's plays stood out at that age. He would start heading for a spot on the ice long before there was an indication to anyone else that the puck would end up there and, sure enough, most times the puck would end up on his stick. He scored 29 goals in his second junior season and dominated the Ontario Hockey League. In his third season, a Toronto columnist had this lead on a yarn on the prodigy: “If Bobby Orr turns out to be merely human, strong men in Boston will weep.”

A BOY AGAINST MEN

A game in Orr's pre-NHL days that sealed the deal on his surefire stardom came in his final junior season when he neared his 18th birthday. The Toronto Marlboros juniors were scheduled to meet the great national team of the old Soviet Union and added several other top junior players including Orr, Serge Savard, and Derek Sanderson. Orr was exceptional in a 4–3 loss, the first time he had been on display against men.

BUT ALAN, HE'S NOT EVEN OF AGE

Orr was represented by lawyer Alan Eagleson in negotiations on the prodigy's first contract with the Bruins, whose business was handled by the stern Hap Emms, a longtime coach of Bruins junior development teams in Barrie and Niagara Falls. The contract was signed on Emms' yacht in Ontario's Lake Simcoe, the biggest deal ever for an NHL player. When the signatures were on the paper, Eagleson suggested that it was an occasion that demanded a cork out of champagne bottle. A noted tightwad who ran his junior teams on a strict low budget, Emms opened the boat's fridge, took out a can and the signing of “Number Four,” maybe the greatest ever, was celebrated with a sip of Fresca.

Scotty Bowman had a long and honorable coaching career.

L
arry Robinson, the standout Montreal Canadien defenceman during the team's exceptional success in the 1970s, offered perhaps the best summation of head coach Scotty Bowman: “There were times when I didn't think I could stand him any longer but I didn't want to marry him. I did know that if I did what he told me and the team did, too, we would all be successful. You might not like his approach but, most of the time, the end results were the thing you loved—winning!”

AND WIN HE DID…

Bowman stands alone among NHL coaches. In 30 seasons at the helm of four teams, Bowman won the Stanley Cup a record nine times: five with the Canadiens, one with the Pittsburgh Penguins and three with the Detroit Red Wings. One of his mentors and coaching heroes, Toe Blake, guided the Canadiens to eight Cup championships from 1955 to 1968. Only one other man, Hap Day, coached teams to more than four championships—five with his Toronto Maple Leafs. In 2,141 schedule games, Bowman's teams won 1,244 and tied 313 for a winning percentage of .654. Only one other coach, Al Arbour, has more than 700 wins. In the playoffs, Bowman has 223 wins in 353 games, 100 more wins than second-place Arbour.

VIEWS AT VARIANCE

Survey the dozens of players on his teams over those 30 years, and it would be rare to find two with the same impression of the man. Some saw him as a whip-cracking disciplinarian who was cold and aloof personally, unable to express emotion, true feelings or sincere encouragement. Others felt he was a genius—much smarter and more knowledgeable than the men behind the other benches—and the best praise they could receive from him was when he said nothing about their play.

A SIMPLE GAME

In discussing the game, Bowman always made his outlook on hockey sound simple. Asked once what the most important part of coaching, his reply was terse: “Having the right players on the ice.” Pressed to expand on that, Bowman said, “If the other team is using, say, a right-winger and he will overpower the left-winger we have opposite him, then we have to make a quick change and get a guy out there who can handle him. If we leave out an overmatched player and the opposition scores a goal, then we have to score two to get a lead. That's much more difficult to do than making the change of players to keep the other team from scoring. If they don't score, then we only need one to get the lead.”

DEFENCE, WHO NEEDS IT?

While Bowman's championship teams with the Canadiens, Penguins and Red Wings all had high-scoring attacks, their strongest asset was always defence. But even on the subject of goal prevention, he had a unique approach. “Often teams that can score never get enough credit for their defensive play,” Bowman said. “With, say, the Canadiens, puck control was a big part of our defence. The so-called thinkers in the game figured a great defensive team was one that turned the puck over to the opposition, then checked them strongly. I always figure that if we had the puck ourselves and it was under control, the other team wasn't going to score much. That seemed like pretty good defence to me, anyway.”

WHAT A RISE!

A Montreal native, Bowman played top level junior hockey in the Canadiens system, then suffered a serious head injury. Contrary to popular belief, the injury did not end his career; he played 90 junior games afterwards. When his junior days were over, he moved into coaching youngsters and scouting for the Canadiens, rising through the ranks to be coach of major junior clubs in Peterborough and Montreal. He logged time with the Canadiens minor-pro farm teams, working as assistant manager and coach to Sam Pollock, who became hockey's top executive with the NHL Canadiens. When the NHL expanded by six teams in 1967, Bowman was hired by the new St. Louis Blues as GM and head coach. Assembling a team of veterans and overlooked youngsters, Bowman remarkably took the
Blues to the Stanley Cup final in each of the team's first three seasons in the league. He returned to the Canadiens organization as head coach in 1972 and over the next seven seasons with them he recorded five Stanley Cup wins—four consecutive from 1976–1979.

FOUR MORE AS COACH

When Pollock left the GM's job to go into private business, Bowman felt snubbed when not named as replacement and resigned from the team. He was hired as GM and coach of the Buffalo Sabres, where he encountered the only weak stretch in his career. The Sabres were only a .500 playoff team in his six years at the helm, after which he did television analysis for a season. He joined the Penguins as personnel director but when head coach “Badger” Bob Johnson—who had guided the Pens to the Cup the previous season—died suddenly just before the 1992–93 schedule, Bowman was named coach and he led them to the 1993 crown. He moved to the Red Wings as head coach for the 1993–94 season, a stay that lasted for nine seasons, winning the Cup in 1997, 1998 and 2002. With all the coaching records strongly in his book, Bowman announced his retirement from coaching during the 2002 on-ice victory celebrations. Bowman wasn't done winning Cups, though:. he got his name engraved on Lord Stanley's Mug again in 2010 as Senior Advisor of Hockey Operations of the Chicago Blackhawks.

* * * * *

“Ice hockey is a form of disorderly conduct in which the score is kept.”

—Doug Larson

“A puck is a hard rubber disc that hockey players strike when they can't hit one another.”

—sports columnist Jimmy Cannon

“We take the shortest route to the puck and arrive in ill humor.”

—Bobby Clarke,
captain of the Philadelphia Flyers, 1972

1) In 1971, the Montreal Canadiens traded to acquire the first-round draft position to select a young Guy Lafleur. With what team did they make the trade?

a) Cleveland Barons

b) Atlanta Flames

c) California Golden Seals

d) Minnesota North Stars

e) Vancouver Canucks

2) Who is the only coach to lose 12 Stanley Cup Finals?

a) Dick Irvin

b) Scotty Bowman

c) Al Arbour

d) Jack Adams

e) Don Cherry

3) The floundering Vancouver Canucks of the 1970s once employed an outside consultant to help winger Rosaire Paiement out of a scoring slump. Whom did they hire?

a) Reveen the Impossiblist

b) Dr. Joyce Brothers

c) Maurice Richard

d) A Las Vegas stripper

e) A priest

4) Match the following players to the appropriate nationality:

5) Who said, “I don't like hockey. I'm just good at it”?

a) Eric Lindros

b) Pavel Bure

c) Brett Hull

d) Mike Bossy

e) Jacques Plante

6) In the early 1950s, a young Maple Leaf named Les Costello abandoned a promising NHL career to become a priest. But Father Costello was far from finished with hockey. He formed a barnstorming hockey team of priests from all parts of Ontario. What was the name of this righteous squad?

a) The Holy Terrors

b) The Flying Fathers

c) The Sacred Order of Skaters

d) The 12 Disciples

e) The Fishers of Men

7) Joe Nieuwendyk, three-time winner of the Stanley Cup as a member of the Calgary Flames, Dallas Stars, and New Jersey Devils, once used the Cup itself as a rather unconventional receptacle. What did he put in it?

a) French fries and gravy

b) Geraniums

c) A tropical fish

d) Potpourri

e) Bridge mixture

8) Who is the only player to score twice in a 10-second span in an All-Star game?

a) Dennis Maruk, Washington Capitals

b) Dennis Hextall, Minnesota North Stars

c) Denis Savard, Chicago Blackhawks

d) Dennis Ververgaert, Vancouver Canucks

e) Dennis Hull, Chicago Black Hawks

9) Which
TWO
of the following teams were
NOT
in the World Hockey Association (1972–1979)?

a) Calgary Cowboys

b) Colorado Rockies

c) Denver Spurs

d) Houston Aeros

e) Kentucky Colonels

f) Quebec Nordiques

g) San Francisco SeaHawks

h) San Diego Mariners

10) Which of the following players
NEVER
won the Conn Smythe Trophy (awarded to the most valuable player of the Stanley Cup playoffs)?

a) Butch Goring

b) Jean-Sebastien Giguere

c) Stan Mikita

d) Jean Béliveau

e) Mark Messier

f) Roger Crozier

* * * * *

 

THE GREAT UNCLE JOHN'S BATHROOM READER HOCKEY QUIZ — ANSWER KEY

1. c) California Golden Seals; 2. a) Dick Irvin; 3. a) Reveen the Hypnotist; 4. a) Sergei Priakin is Russian; b) Ivan Hlinka is Czech; c) Ivan Boldirev is Yugoslavian; d) Alexei Zhitnik is Ukrainian; e) Marion Gaborik is Slovakian; 5. c) Brett Hull 6. b) The Flying Fathers; 7. a) French fries and gravy; 8. d) Dennis Ververgaert, Vancouver Canucks; 9. b) Colorado Rockies & e) Kentucky Colonels; 10. c) Stan Mikita.

Random thoughts from former NHL tough guy Tiger Williams, who was as quick with a quote as he was to drop the gloves.

O
n the problem with some NHL tough guys of today:
“As they mature as players and get used to the pro lifestyle, they kind of want to look like their bankbook. They want to be a little more dignified, but there's no job for them in that area. They forget what got them there and they're not around very long.”