0206150372
DETROIT FREE PRESS
020615
Saturday, June 15, 2002
METRO FINAL
1A
Photo MANDI WRIGHT/Detroit Free Press
In the swirl of Thursday's celebration, the Red Wings' coach and
captain -- Scotty Bowman and Steve Yzerman -- exchange a hug and words of
congratulations.
From the left, goaltender Dominik Hasek, owner Mike Ilitch, coach Scotty
Bowman and left wing Luc Robitaille ham it up during the team photo on the ice
after the Red Wings clinched the Stanley Cup at Joe Louis Arena. Moments
earlier, Bowman started telling people he would retire.
Scotty Bowman, with his wife, Suella, walks out of Joe Louis Arena on the
night he retired from coaching, the same night he won his ninth Stanley
Cup,the most of any NHL coach.
(following caption appeared in the State edition, page 9A.)
Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman carries the Stanley Cup out of the Joe Louis
Arena early Friday morning. He put it is his SUV and drove it to a private
team party in Royal Oak.
MITCH ALBOM FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Copyright (c) 2002, Detroit Free Press
WHY SCOTTY FINALLY DECIDED TO RETIRE
COACH LONGS TO TELL TEAM HOW GOOD IT REALLY IS
Scotty Bowman's eyes were moist, his shirt was soaked and his hair was sticky
from sprayed champagne. It had been only two hours since he and the Red Wings
recaptured the Stanley Cup, but somehow, in that brief time, something had
changed. His voice. It was missing its normal edge. It was gentler now, more
reasoned, more resigned, like a drill sergeant who had gone from giving orders
to soldiers to taking them from his wife.
"I wanted to tell the team," said the 68-year-old coach, standing in the
hallway outside the Wings' locker room. "I wanted to tell them how great they
were."
"You haven't ever done that?" I asked.
"I was hoping to tell them tonight." He glanced down the corridor. Players
were hugging their wives. Hoisting their children. Puffing cigars. Kissing the
Cup.
"Maybe tonight," he said, "isn't the right night."
What a strange two hours it had been. Just seconds after the Wings leapt onto
the ice in glorious victory, having defeated Carolina in five games for the
title, Bowman began telling everyone within earshot that he was finished,
done, quitting the coaching ranks forever. He told Mike Ilitch, his owner,
whispering the words. He told Steve Yzerman, his captain. He hugged forward
Brendan Shanahan and told him, too. He told Ken Holland, his GM, with a
handshake. He even told Aaron Ward, a former player now on the Hurricanes.
Whoever was around got the news flash, quick and short, straight from the
coach's mouth. "That was my last game." . . . "I coached my last game." . . .
"It's time for me to go." . . . "I'm done, that was my last game." . . .
Strange? Well, more than a few people wondered about the timing. This was no
small news, Bowman leaving. He is the greatest coach in NHL history, and only
after he arrived did Detroit begin winning titles again. Some think he
overshadowed the night with his announcement. Some think he should have
waited.
You know what I think? I think he couldn't help it. Players leap. Fans slap
hands. Owners light cigars. And Scotty Bowman, a man so detail-oriented he
checks everything from stick length to locker-room air conditioning, couldn't
bear a story without an ending. He had known for months he was leaving. He had
kept it inside until now. Players leap? Fans slap hands? This was an aging
coach's way of celebrating. He had made it through. He was leaving a winner.
And he was alive.
A different voice
"I had that scare in 1998," Bowman told me, referring to some sudden heart
surgery that sidelined him for months, "and that made me consider if I should
come back at all. I looked after myself after that. But I also realized that
sooner or later, you can't keep doing this job.
"After that, I wondered how do you know when you've had enough?"
In previous years, a voice would tell him. He'd hear it, in the weeks that
followed the season finale. "You can't leave yet." It happened after the Red
Wings surrendered the Cup in 1999. It happened after the Wings were stunned
with a first-round knockout in 2001. "You can't leave yet. You're not done."
But this year, for the first time, the voice had a different echo. The Olympic
break came in February, and so in the middle of the season, Bowman and his
family went to Florida. They had nearly two weeks in the sun, no ice, no
practice, no planes, no interviews. And as it was winding down, the voice once
again said, "You can't leave yet."
But it was talking about vacation.
"I knew it would be four more years -- the next Olympics -- before I'd get to
do that again, take time for myself in February. And that's when I decided, I
wasn't up to doing it anymore.
"I made my decision."
He kept a damn good secret. No one knew. Few even suspected. Many Red Wings
learned the news from reporters Thursday night.
"I went to a breakfast place this morning," Shanahan said Friday, "and I got
all the newspapers and I was reading about the game and I saw a picture of me
and Scotty hugging and I just have this stunned look on my face. That was when
he told me. I was still kind of in shock.
"You know, Steve (Yzerman) and I had talked during the playoffs about how much
energy Scotty had this year. We all noticed it. He seemed so on top of his
game.
"But now I realize why. He knew it was the end. So he was savoring every
moment of it."
Bowman's final good-bye
In a photographic darkroom, a picture is dipped first in a tray of developer,
where the image comes up, then a tray of wash to remove the developer, then a
tray of fixer, to hold the image where you want it. Without the final dipping,
the picture will still develop, it just won't stop. It keeps going, getting
darker and darker, until it finally fades to black.
The Red Wings now are like a photograph without the fixer. A wonderful
snapshot that cannot be frozen. New developments keep happening. And the old
image, no matter how much we love it, is doomed to fade.
Who knows what Bowman's departure will engender? Perhaps Dominik Hasek says,
"I'm too old to be breaking in a new coach," and heads back to Europe. Perhaps
41-year-old Igor Larionov says, "I'll never play for anyone as smart as
Bowman; I'm done, too." Perhaps other players see those departures and say,
"This isn't the same team." Perhaps assistant coaches aren't happy with the
new arrangement and bolt. Perhaps Holland, in an attempt to fill the holes,
has to trade some of the faces that made it what it was.
Perhaps Yzerman, the heart and soul of this team, doesn't come back as quickly
as hoped from reconstructive knee surgery. There is no describing what he went
through for this squad, coming to practice but never practicing, taking all
kinds of shots just to make it through another game, skating on a knee so
barren it was like driving a car on tire rims. It was worth every minute, he
will tell you, but the piper waits by his door. And he will be paid.
That's sports. You can't lock in anything -- except memories. So you must make
those when you can.
Which brings us back to that sentence Bowman told me in the hallway Thursday
night: "I wanted to tell them how great a team they've been."
Bowman is not loose with compliments. Time was, he probably didn't see the
point of compliments at all. But now, as the years shorten, he said, "When I
left Montreal, where we won the Cup, I moved on, and never told those Montreal
guys how good they were.
"Now, when I see them 25 years later, now I'm able to tell them. At least I
try.
"That's the one regret you have as a coach. You can't tell the guys how good
they are. But I can do it with this team now, because . . . because I'm not
gonna coach anymore."
Why, Scotty Bowman, I believe you have developed a soft side.
Bowman says he plans to tell the Red Wings all at once, maybe at an upcoming
team function. I asked what he would say.
"I'd just tell them how this Cup shows what a great team they have. There's a
nucleus that has been here a long time, and then you bring in new players who
had great careers but they hadn't won it all -- and they molded together. And
there's no special way you mold that. They mold themselves. I've always said,
you can't make the players get it. If they don't get it on their own, they
never will."
Bowman told a story then. He said after Game 4 in Carolina, which put the Red
Wings within one victory of the Cup, he felt he needed to address the team. He
wanted to tell the Wings to stay controlled, don't believe the hype, don't
think they had won anything just because they were going home.
He went to do that -- and out on the tarmac, near the team plane, Yzerman
already had gathered everyone together and was telling them that very thing.
"It was like having another coach," Bowman said.
And he smiled.
This cannot be the same team without Bowman. No one is pretending it can. But
he leaves behind more than photos. "He taught all of us how to play the game
of hockey," Shanahan said.
And here, in the wee hours Friday morning, was his legacy: Hasek, finally
standing on a stage, spraying his teammates with champagne. Luc Robitaille's
young son sitting atop his dad's locker, one cheek painted with the words
"Robitaille Wins Cup." Steve Duchesne, a 36-year-old journeyman, still
blinking at the idea that "my name is finally going to be on that thing."
Nicklas Lidstrom, who thrives under a defensive mind like Bowman's, holding
the Conn Smythe Trophy over his head as he weaved through the crowd.
And finally, this. A reporter asking Sergei Fedorov what he thought about
Bowman's leaving. Fedorov has had his share of brushes with the coach. Over
the years, he has bristled at Bowman's discipline and bucked against his
playing time.
But here is how Fedorov answered the question:
"He is the best coach ever. He can go out however he wants. He has nine
championships."
He grinned.
"Maybe they should call it the Scotty Cup."
Hmm . . .
Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581 or albom@freepress.com. Catch "Albom in
the Afternoon" 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760). Also catch "Monday Sports
Albom" 7-8 p.m. Mondays on WJR.
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