ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. – “The key to successful coaching is
having a great passion for the game,” said former hockey coach and
legend Scotty Bowman, who gave a motivational speech at St.
Bonaventure University on Wednesday.

Bowman, who is considered the winningest coach in the history of
North American pro sports, won nine Stanley Cups with the Montreal
Canadiens, Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings.

“Winning a Stanley Cup is very difficult,” Bowman claimed. “You
have to have good players, which means you need good draft picks.
The hard part is, to get good draft picks you have to be a bad team
and no one wants to be that.”

Bowman started coaching youth hockey in 1956 and later on
coached the Junior Canadiens. It didn’t take long until he found
himself in St. Louis coaching the Blues. During the three year span
of ’68, ’69 and ’70, Bowman lost in the Stanley Cup finals each
year. Finally, after leaving St. Louis, Bowman coached the Montreal
Canadiens to his first Stanley Cup victory in 1973.

From then on, Bowman led the Canadiens to five Stanley Cup
titles.

“As a coach, you are going to have good games and bad games, but
the attitude you have about the outcome of the game is very
important,” he said. “The most important thing from you (the coach)
and the players is attitude. There are 10 percent of the players
that are so skilled that they don’t need a lot of help, but the
other 90 percent do. If that 90 percent have the right attitude,
they will be better than those who are greatly skilled.”

With a strong mindset and a hard working ethic, Bowman played
his role in coaching better than most that have ever done. He had a
gift.

“Coaching to me is about practicing. If you can practice well,
then you can be a good team,” Bowman noted. “Preparation before the
game and after is vital to winning. The third-most important thing
to coaching a winning team is motivation. Motivating the players
will help them build confidence.”

Bowman’s success was led by motivation. To him, coaching was
more than a job; it was what he loved to do.

“I never felt like I had to go to work,” Bowman noted. “I had a
great passion for my job.”

Throughout Bowman’s coaching career he has had to deal with the
media at each and every step. Surprisingly, he finds sports writers
and commentators to be very fun and interesting people.

“What I enjoyed most about the media was that they were
knowledgeable people that knew about the game,” Bowman added.
“Their opinions weren’t always the same as mine, but I enjoyed what
they did.”

In the NHL today, hockey fans are noticing the game is being
played differently. Compared to 10 years ago, the amount of
physical contact has disappeared and it no longer seems that teams
thrive on toughness. Nowadays, it’s all about talent and
skills.

“The style of play is much more conducive to skill today,”
Bowman described. “There is a growing concern that there isn’t a
lot of physical play. During the playoffs I still think it gets
physical.”

Between 1979 and 1986, Bowman coached the Buffalo Sabres on four
separate occasions. Amazingly, this is one of the few teams he
didn’t lead to a championship.

Bowman makes his home in Buffalo, N.Y.