I'm going to say Scotty Bowman because he's won wherever he's been. Except in Buffalo and St. Louis, but those teams were good as well. St. Louis reached the finals three times in a row while Buffalo made it to round 3 the season he got there.
His successes have made him legendary and imo it's no shock to me that the current rise of the Blackhawks goes hand-in-hand with his arrival.
There are other candidates, of course. Gretzky comes to mind. Lemaire. Arbour. Toe Blake. Dick Irvin. Orr. Howe. Lemieux.
Art Ross and Anatoli Tarasov are also good choices.
Art Ross:
Quote:
Ross is also one of hockey's creative innovators as he improved the design of the goal nets which were still being used in the 1980s more-or-less used today. He also perfected the hockey puck which hasn't changed, except for that silly experiment by an American Television station! Ross also came up with early forms of a helmet and the plus/minus system, not to mention the "kitty bar the door," which resembles today's neutral zone trap.
After World War II, Tarasov was asked to put together a hockey program from scratch. He helped found a hockey department at the Red Army's sports club, CSKA Moscow with little more than several old hockey rulebooks. Before then, the most popular ice sport in Russia and the Soviet Union was bandy, a sport similar to field hockey. The Russian style of hockey, with its emphasis on skating skill, offense and passing, is still heavily influenced by bandy.[2]
Tarasov served either as coach or co-coach of CSKA Moscow from 1946 to 1975, except for three short breaks in 1960, 1964 and 1972. He was named coach of the Soviet national team in 1958, a post he held until 1972.
Tarasov also trained Vladislav Tretiak, who mentored Eddie Belfour and influenced Martin Brodeur.
Gretzky might have been a smart player, but it wasn't exactly a smart move to become a failure of a coach in Phoenix, was it? It tarnished his image and hurt his finances.
Gretzky might have been a smart player, but it wasn't exactly a smart move to become a failure of a coach in Phoenix, was it? It tarnished his image and hurt his finances.
It hurt his finances? How so? Wasn't he earning like $8 million a year? And it didn't tarnish his imagine. You might think it tarnished his image, but it didn't. There's a lot of cases of a great player who failed at coach, and you don't remember any one of them. It's hard to forget Gretzky as a coach, because he just stopped doing it, but we will eventually.
And I don't think Gretzky failing as a coach has any impact on his level of smartness when it comes to hockey. Gretzky's the equivalent of that teacher who isn't really good at their job, but it's mainly because they're incredibly smart and can't relay the material onto the students. It happens.
It hurt his finances? How so? Wasn't he earning like $8 million a year? And it didn't tarnish his imagine. You might think it tarnished his image, but it didn't. There's a lot of cases of a great player who failed at coach, and you don't remember any one of them. It's hard to forget Gretzky as a coach, because he just stopped doing it, but we will eventually.
And I don't think Gretzky failing as a coach has any impact on his level of smartness when it comes to hockey. Gretzky's the equivalent of that teacher who isn't really good at their job, but it's mainly because they're incredibly smart and can't relay the material onto the students. It happens.
He is recently out a lot of money. And yes, the fiasco in Phoenix did tarnish his image. Not as a player, but as a sports icon. Like Jordan's gambling problem. It might be a minor tarnish, but it's still there.
In any case, it wasn't an astute decision for Gretzky to become involved in that hockey franchise. Esp. to coach it when he had no experience in coaching whatsoever. So he gets knocked down a peg in 'hockey intelligence' due to that, imo.
Gretzky says he's done with hockey. That says it all.
