Scott's honor

Bowman certainly made it memorable through the years

I know Scotty Bowman. That is, he would recognize me whenever I stopped by his office. Which is, in fact, no great claim because I'm pretty sure Bowman remembers everyone he's ever met, everything he's ever done and few things he thought he heard. He knew the entire NHL game schedule by heart.

We would sit in his room, just off the locker room area in Detroit, and on his desk he'd have a sundae cup piled high with berries. He'd pick absentmindedly at the fruit as we talked about Sergei Fedorov, or Steve Yzerman or Darren McCarty. If I ever said anything dumb (which, sitting next to Bowman, happened more often than I care to admit) Bowman pointed it out in the simplest sense. "No, that's not right," he'd say.

He spoke in a kind of ragtime, snatching anecdotes from games and incidents that had barely made a blip on anyone's consciousness, let alone stayed in memory. He'd jump from topic to topic, thoughts rushing into his dome faster than he could get them out. He'd whisper, he'd bark, he'd laugh, he'd fall silent and jut out his chin. "Have a good time with the master?" Red Wings assistant coach Dave Lewis might say when you came out of Bowman's lair.

The lair is now closed, or at least ready to be inhabited by someone else. Bowman's retirement announcement -- which he began making on the ice at Joe Louis Arena, even before he took his victory lap with the Stanley Cup last week -- came like one of coaching decisions, a jolt from nowhere that, as soon as you stopped to think about it, made perfect sense. Bowman owns one of those records now, like Gretzky's point totals, that seems sure to outlast even the sport itself: nine Stanley Cups.

At the victory parade in Detroit last weekend, Bowman said he would work as a consultant for the Red Wings and hoped his bosses would be lenient "because I want to have time to do other things." Other things? A life outside of the gorgeous game he loves? I'll believe it when I see it.

It doesn't matter if you like the Red Wings or not. It doesn't matter if you fell for hockey this year or in 1917. Your NHL landscape is poorer today. What we're losing is much more than the most accomplished hockey coach of all time. I won't bore you with the many numbers that you've surely read and re-read over the past few days, but they boil down to this: more regular-season and playoff wins than any NHL coach ever, to go with all those Cups.

Bowman was the first throwaway sentence in any analysis of top NHL coaches. "Except for Scotty Bowman, who's the best bench coach ...." Or "Except for Scotty Bowman, who would you most like to run your preseason ...." Before you debated Ken Hitchcock vs. Pat Burns, or Ron Wilson vs. Joel Quenneville, the Bowman caveat came first.

There was no one better at reading a game. Suddenly he'd put McCarty on the top line for two shifts and the momentum would swing in the Wings' favor. The way, in earlier years, he'd give Joey Kocur a minute in the middle of the period. Or he'd rest Yzerman just long enough for the Captain to regain his energy, but not long enough for his aging knee to stiffen. Scotty didn't have to ask Stevie when it was time to go back in. Scotty simply knew.

He managed people too, such as Fedorov and Brendan Shanahan. He'd stick Shanahan with pins or give him high praise, and Shanny always took whatever Bowman dished because he knew Bowman was right. He rode Fedorov hard, moving him all over the ice. Then, one time, when Fedorov's heart was aching when he missed Anna, the light of his life (his sin, his soul), Bowman gave him three days off in the middle of the season to set things straight. "He was a tough, tough coach and he was wonderful person," Fedorov said after this Cup was won.

Over the years, mixed in with all the praise, I heard a few detractors, too. Only a few. They were feeble men. A guy who worked with Bowman when he was winning a Cup with the Lemieux-led Penguins in 1992 said to me last year, "Hey, a monkey could have changed lines on that team." It was one of those moments when you could see right through a man, see his insecurities and weaknesses and feel pity that he had to take a hockey god's name in vain.

Bowman was Ahab, of course. Staggering around on that one good leg, the wild look in eyes, hollering at his men. He might have been beaten four years ago when, not long after the death of his brother Jack, Bowman underwent angioplasty and knee-replacement surgery. He missed all of training camp and the first five games of the 1998-99 season. As he rehabilitated, he took long walks on the Florida beaches and thought about abandoning the chase. But he came back for one last run at the holy grail and grabbed it yet again. A peg leg under his slacks? Who knows -- we've yet to see him kneel.

Good luck Scotty, and thanks.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Kostya Kennedy takes sides every Wednesday at CNNSI.com.

 

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