NHL ENTRY DRAFT

June 21, 2003

Scotty Bowman

SCOTTY BOWMAN: Well, I have known Roger since 1961. I coached in Peterborough the three years before that and I became a head scout for Montreal for eastern Canada and in those days each organization the six teams had one scout in the west and one in the east and a lot of other people that were stringers or bulldogs. We didn't have anybody in the Toronto area and I am not sure exactly how I met him, but I do remember the first meeting I had with Roger, he was teaching Phy Ed at a Toronto high school. He had more than just a paper route because he was like a distributor, and he had baseball in the summer. That's when I met him, and in the fall he became -- he was coaching a midget team in Toronto; a lot of good young prospects on it and he also found time to coach a junior B team in Aurora. I couldn't believe how he could manage his time. And when I had to talk to him about some young players, because in those days as you know, the draft started in '63, in fact the first player we took -- I made the first selection in Montreal. And Detroit had the next pick. Anyways, Roger, I used -- I had to call him -- only time I could talk to him between seven o'clock and 7:15 in the morning when he came over for a shower and he'd work 'til midnight with all these functions. I don't know how he juggled his time and he used to -- sometimes he'd reschedule his midget teams games 'til 10 o'clock so could get there for the second and third periods. But he went to Peterborough a few years later, and from then on his career blossomed in the NHL; went to Dallas. I think that's when Toronto first noticed him and then he started with the Leafs. He was very instrumental with the Montreal Canadiens - Bob Gainey and Jarvis. Gainey I think was drafted in '73 and a very early pick for the stats he had in junior hockey and Montreal -- (inaudible) but Roger made a lot of trips to Peterborough. He couldn't say enough about Bob Gainey. I think they drafted him about 8th overall, and everybody -- in fact, I could even tell you a story when Bob started with the Canadiens the first couple of times he was on the ice, a couple of players used to come by and say we drafted this guy, what do you see in him. That was before he became a great player. Then Roger was very instrumental. When I went to Buffalo in 1979 putting together a coaching staff and Roger just left Toronto and I convinced Roger to come with me to Buffalo and Jim Roberts, I think maybe -- I think that is when I was in Detroit with Barry Smith and Dave LEWIS for nine years, we had just a slight chemistry. I was the head coach. (Inaudible) Roger took over as head coach in 1980, 1981 and he convinced me to -- was a real good up-and-coming coach in Peterborough, Mike Keenan, I remember Roger bringing Mike over to the Buffalo, interviewed Mike, and Mike went in to his start his coaching career with Rochester Americans. That's only a bit of people that he had a big influence on him. I was at his coaching clinic in Windsor. He called me about a month ago; he didn't think he was going to be able to make that trip and he said would I go and it was the first one he was going to miss and I think it was the 16th year this year and I went over there last Thursday night and, you know, I was able to talk to him. That was only a week ago.He had some 300 coaches for the last probably 15 years, some NHL coaches, some Minor League coaches, and I said, the coaches in the NHL are getting blamed a lot for the coaching style that teams are playing, I said you should blame Roger Nilsson because he is training all these coaches in his clinic (laughs). He was a special person. Everybody knew what he was going through. I think you people that know him that follow hockey the last year what he really went through and truly I think he battled it right to the end and I think hockey probably kept Roger going.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: I think it's the way he started. I wasn't involved in his baseball teams that he coached all summer long and it wasn't just one team. He got his hands on a lot of -- I think that's what got him into the hockey part and from the days that I met him in 1961, the schedule that he was under and then I think when he finally got an opportunity to get a full-time job in hockey and get rid of all these other jobs, probably that's why he had a passion. I wasn't sure that he'd leave junior hockey because he just loved Peterborough. He made it his home, you know, he was just -- Roger never got married. He was married to hockey. I think when he got the opportunity to go -- he had -- I am pretty sure he was a goaltender in minor hockey and I am not sure if he made -- it was a team in Toronto, a farm team, I always used to kid him I said, I think you have got a Maple Leafs tattooed somewhere. I think he had the opportunity to go back to Toronto, his hometown, and coach the Maple Leafs, that got him started, but he was just, you know, I think it's because of -- he was such a busy guy. I have been pretty busy myself; never busy as he was. I couldn't talk to him at midnight because it was too late and he was living at home and I'd have to call the next day, but we became very good friends 40 years ago.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: Certainly qualified but sometimes they just -- there's other people and you know, but I think the right decisions were made and Roger has not got as much credit maybe as a coach because -- maybe because he moved on different teams but in the fact that he did coach in a thousand games and that's a mark that not too many coach will ever be able to say they did. And to get back to Ottawa and you know, he had some tough times Roger when -- I thought he -- I knew when he went to Philadelphia -- actually when he went to the Rangers, I don't know, Rangers won the Presidents Trophy and so a lot of -- I know when he went to Buffalo the first year, he was a very important part of our staff, went from 7th overall to 2nd in the '79/'80, and we swept a couple of series pretty quickly and we lost to the Islanders after about a 10-day layoff. But Roger was -- his strong suit was -- people think it was in the video sessions, probably the most -- he started some of the most sophisticated systems but he was terrific on the bench. He could do it all. Very seldom -- he knew how to match players like any of them. His preparation for practices was running like a clinic like he did. He was really, really an intelligent person, you know, he was, as I said, a phys ed teacher. He got his degree. I think he had a Masters Degree as well, but just hard work never bothered him.