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Scotty Bowman returns for his third season as a consultant for the team's front office and 12th season overall with the organization. Bowman announced his retirement during the on-ice celebration shortly after the Red Wings clinched the Stanley Cup Championship June 13, 2002. He now holds the title of Consultant and reports directly to the club's General Manager, Ken Holland. In this role, Bowman is involved in many different areas of assessing and analyzing the team. He will also be asked to give his valuable input on player personnel decisions. Bowman has also scouted many teams prior to them facing the Red Wings.
Bowman was named Detroit's 24th head coach in franchise history June 15, 1993. On June 24, 1994 he added the title of Director of Player Personnel, a post he held through the 1996-97 season. The 2001-02 season was Bowman's ninth as Head Coach of the Red Wings and 30th overall in the National Hockey League. His final season culminated with him not only guiding Detroit to a league-best 51 wins and 116 points earning the team its third Presidents' Trophy, but more importantly the franchise's 10th Stanley Cup Championship.
Bowman himself has won the Stanley Cup 10 times, including nine as a head coach, breaking his idol Toe Blake's record of eight titles, and one as Pittsburgh's Director of Player Development and Recruitment when the Penguins claimed the Stanley Cup in 1991. The next season Bowman assumed the coaching duties after the late Bob Johnson become ill. He helped the Penguins earn their second consecutive Stanley Cup to close out the 1992 NHL season.
Overall, Bowman has coached four different teams (St. Louis, Montreal, Pittsburgh and Detroit) into a total of 13 Stanley Cup Finals series' registering a record of 9-4. In a total of 58 Stanley Cup Finals games, Bowman has won 36 and lost 22.
He is the only coach in NHL history to have led three different teams to Stanley Cup glory: Montreal (5 times), Pittsburgh (1 time) and Detroit (3 times). He remains solidly in place as the all-time NHL coaching leader in regular season victories (1,244) as well as playoff wins (223) with an astonishing combined career win total of 1,467 NHL games. Bowman has coached another NHL record of 2,141 regular season games and has won the Jack Adams Award for Best Coach in the league twice (1977 and 1996). No other NHL coach is even close to any of those numbers and probably won't be for a very long time to come.
He finished his coaching career with 410 wins in Detroit. This ranks second all-time in franchise history only to the legendary Jack Adams who guided the Red Wings to 413 victories in 964 games coached (1927 through 1947). Bowman coached the Red Wings in 263 fewer games than Adams and still registered only three fewer victories. Already a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto and the winningest coach in National Hockey League history, Bowman met a seemingly unreachable milestone February 8, 1997 at Pittsburgh recording his 1,000th career victory.
In the 1995-96 season, Bowman led the Red Wings to their then second consecutive President's Trophy, posting an NHL record of 62 wins in a single season. Detroit finished that season 62-13-7 for a franchise best mark of 131 points. That record 62-win season for Bowman and the Red Wings broke his own record of 60 wins set by Bowman's 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens.
Bowman entered the coaching ranks of the NHL in the 1967-68 season with the St. Louis Blues when the league expanded from six to 12 teams. He led the expansion Blues to the Stanley Cup Finals in each of the club's first three seasons and won two division titles.
In 1971, Bowman moved on to coach the Montreal Canadiens, where he earlier worked and coached in the club's minor league system. Bowman achieved remarkable success in leading the fabled Canadiens to five Stanley Cup Championships (1973, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979) along with six divisional titles in eight years. In seven of his eight years behind the Montreal bench, Bowman's Canadiens notched more than 100 points and missed the mark just once with 99. The 1976-77 Montreal squad still holds the NHL record for fewest losses (8) in a single season of 70 or more games played.
Bowman has coached an NHL record 13 All-Star games throughout his career with the latest being February 2, 2002 in Los Angeles. He was inducted as a builder into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1991, the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame in 2000. He was inducted into the Michigan Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2001. Bowman has won the Jack Adams Award for Outstanding Coach twice in his illustrious career (1977 and 1996) and was awarded the 2001 Lester Patrick Award for outstanding service to hockey in the United States. The United States Hockey Hall of Fame inducted Bowman during their 29th Annual Induction Ceremony December 4, 2002. He also received the Wayne Gretzky International Award in 2002. This award is given annually to an international citizen who has been deemed to have made a major contribution to the growth of hockey in the United States. His latest honor came May 17, 2003 as he received an honorary degree from Canisius College in upstate New York. Bowman was presented with a doctor of humane letters degree from Canisius President Rev. Vincent M. Cooke. Most recently Bowman was honored with an induction into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in the summer of 2004.
He resides in the Buffalo, N.Y. area with his wife Suella. The Bowman's have five grown children (Alicia, David, Stanley, Bob and Nancy). | 