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Tuesday, November 20, 2001

Ten years ago next Monday, he left us. He succumbed, after a three-month battle, to cancer that afflicted his brain, the only darkness to ever invade such a sunny man. Badger Bob Johnson died Nov. 26, 1991. He was 60 years young. It was a dreadful day for hockey.

	(Post-Gazette Photo)

None of the friends and Penguins family he left behind can believe a decade has passed. The memories sustain them.

Steve Latin, the Penguins equipment manager who used to yank into place the coach's high-riding sweatpants before every practice:
"Not a day goes by when you don't think of him. Good ol' Badger."

Mark Johnson, son, onetime Penguins player and current University of Wisconsin assistant:
"Wow. Time really goes by quickly. Ten years."

His father, the affable man alternately known as Badger Bob (for his Wisconsin successes) and Badger (for short) and Hawk (for his tell-tale beak), spent barely 14 months as Penguins coach. He wound up teaching the players and the Pittsburgh populace. We believed. The previously Flightless Waterfowl won their first Stanley Cup with Badger behind the bench, rubbing his face, scribbling his notes, teaching, believing. Close your eyes 10 years later, and you can see him still.

A Badger will lead them

Barry Smith, a former Penguins assistant and current Detroit assistant:
"It's a little like it was fate, that he came back after a number of years being in administration with U.S. Hockey. He's a field general. He's not the type of person to be behind a desk."

Craig Patrick: "When the DeBartolos asked me to be the general manager [December 1989], they asked me who would be the coach. So I mentioned that I wanted to get to know the team before I chose the coach. After I coached the team awhile, I decided Bob would be the perfect fit. Our team ... needed a teacher.

"It's ironic. We played a game in Minnesota, at the Met Center, sometime. There was a pay phone outside that dressing room. I called him from there. 'Bob ... I know you've got a job, but you'd be the guy I want if you were interested.' 'Craig, I'm interested ...' Little more than a year later, lo and behold, we're winning the Cup in that same building."

After building fabulously successful programs at Warroad High School in his native Minnesota, Wisconsin (where he won three NCAA titles) and NHL Calgary (where he directed the Flames to the 1986 Stanley Cup final), Johnson moved to Colorado Springs, Colo., to become executive director of USA Hockey. That lasted three years. That lasted until Patrick summoned.

Patrick was the GM, Johnson the head coach and Scotty Bowman the director of player recruitment and development. They formed a Hall of Fame triumvirate at the top of a heretofore moribund franchise that failed to make the all-comers NHL playoffs seven of the eight previous seasons. On draft day, they acquired Joey Mullen, a Johnson horse from Calgary, and drafted Jaromir Jagr.

Johnson reported to work at the then-Civic Arena and hung a sign on his office door: "Never teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time, and it annoys the pig."

Mullen, a winger then and an assistant now:
"In the beginning, they were kind of looking at him: Is this guy for real? I would have to say sometimes, 'Hey, just give him a chance. ... He's got a strange way of doing things. But he gets his points across. He's a good coach. And he'll keep things fun."

Smith: "He was so amazingly optimistic, his outlook on things. Always the brighter side. It couldn't help but wear off on you."

Troy Loney, a winger then:
"It's such a dramatic change from the normal coaching in those days -- how many positive guys were there? It got to a point in that season when we asked him to show us what we were doing badly, because he was only showing us the good stuff. And we were getting whacked pretty good early on, like 7-2."

Bob Errey, a winger then and a broadcaster now:
"He'd come in after a loss and he'd say, 'Bobby, you got a station wagon?' No. 'Get your station wagon, get yourself a couple kids' -- like you could just go out and get kids -- 'and drive somewhere.' He thought getting to that family stuff would ground you, get you away from hockey."

Loney: " He'd say, 'You need to get away from the game. You need to take your wife to a John Wayne movie.' There were no John Wayne movies then. Or, 'You need to take your dog for a walk. If you don't have a dog, knock on your neighbor's door and take his dog.' "

Errey: "The attention span of a hockey player is, like, one second. We're like 5-year-old kids. But he was a great teacher. He made it fun."

Pierre Maguire, advance scout then:
"His practices were awesome. They were so perfect. They really made players better."

Errey: "Like Randy Gilhen. 'Gilly, Gilly, I got to get another step out of you.' And he'd always work with Randy out at center ice, just like he was a Mighty Mite."

Smith: "He really loved to go out there for practice. He had his practice skates and his game-day skates. He was a big kid. Just loved to be on the pond. Loved to be around the guys."

Errey: "Every day really was a great day for hockey for him. He lived and breathed hockey. He really did."

Lessons learned

One-fourth of the team was remodeled midyear. Bowman and Patrick found Larry Murphy and Peter Taglianetti in Minnesota that December. In March came Ron Francis, Ulf Samuelsson and Grant Jennings. They meshed, almost immediately, with Lemieux and Coffey and Jagr and Phil Bourque and Mark Recchi and Kevin Stevens and the rest. The Penguins went 9-3-2 down the stretch and 8-4 through the playoffs' opening two rounds, thanks to Frank Pietrangelo's The Save and a two-game rally after facing elimination against New Jersey. Then they lost the first two games at Boston in the conference finals. Johnson veered away, letting leaders emerge in the dressing room -- where Stevens promptly stepped up and guaranteed a Penguins victory.

Maguire: "I remember being in his office with Scotty and the rest of the coaches, and he said, 'We'll turn this over to the players.' Kevin had a huge voice, and Bob knew to trust certain players on the team."

Mullen: "If anything, there was a lot of talent here. They needed that direction -- which he gave us."

Loney: "That team, there were a lot of different personalities there. A lot of different ways that team could have went. He just provided an environment where we all could come together, where we could win and where we could learn to win. I never found that team to be a real close team off the ice. But on the ice, I've never been around a group like that. Unbelievably tight. And I think he was the glue that brought it all together."

The Penguins swept the next four games from Boston to reach the Stanley Cup final. They fell behind, two games to one, to the Minnesota North Stars. Johnson was affronted after reading in his hometown newspaper how Minneapolis' city fathers were prematurely planning a parade route. His Penguins won the next three games, 5-3, 6-4 and 8-0.

Latin: "We're in Minnesota for Game 6. We're up 6-0, end of the second period. He comes in like John Wayne. 'Guys, in 20 minutes, we're going to be world champions. ... Don't [screw] it up.'"

Mullen: "My favorite memory? Winning the Cup. Because I had won one in Calgary [two years earlier without Johnson], and he's the guy that brought me to Calgary. I still felt he was the influential part of that Calgary Cup team. He had moved on, but we pretty much kept everything he was doing."

Mark Johnson: "He always talked about climbing mountains. I don't think when he started that season that he understood it could be one of the biggest mountains he would climb. I don't think even he thought he could do it in a year."

The end

The career coach, as he called himself, thus owned championships in the NHL and the NCAA. He next tried the international level, where he earned only a fourth-place finish with the U.S. squad the Olympics before Herb Brooks' miracle. Johnson was working with the USA team for the 1991 Canada Cup when signs of something wrong began to surface.

On Aug. 29, Martha Johnson decided at dinner at a local restaurant that her husband required immediate attention. He was taken to Mercy Hospital with stroke-like symptoms. Emergency surgery was performed to remove a tumor. But there was remained an inoperable tumor. Brain cancer.

The coach dictated strategy and gave pregame pep talks from his hospital bed, helping USA to a silver-medal finish in the Canada Cup. Smith, Maguire (bearing Johnson's favored glazed donuts) and other Penguins folks dropped by his hospital room for visits, which usually came around to talk of line combinations and Johnson -- increasingly unable to speak -- scribbling down more notes. When he was moved home to Colorado Springs, he commenced swapping faxes back and forth with the Penguins.

Smith: "We were always optimistic that he'd be back on the bench again. That whole second year, it was Bob Johnson's team all along. It was never Scotty Bowman's team or my team. It was Bob Johnson's team."

Loney: "Oh, it was just awful. It was just devastating. As we found out more what was going on with him, I was so thankful that we won the year before. To have been there and not win and have him pass away, it would have been very, very difficult to handle."

Johnson passed away Nov. 26. The next night, the Arena was the site of a tribute to the career coach. His mantra, "A great day for hockey," was painted onto the ice. Badger patches were stitched onto uniforms. Battery-powered candles were borne aloft and hymns were played. The Penguins scored four of the night's final five goals to handily defeat the New Jersey Devils. Six days later, coaches, players, wives and front-office folks flew to Colorado Springs, on the team's way to Edmonton to play the following day.

Loney: "I remember standing at the grave site. We had just gotten our Stanley Cup rings. Bourquey, I think, was the first guy to walk up to the casket, and he bumped his ring on the coffin. Then we all did. That was really memorable to me. He meant a lot to all of us."

Latin: "I got one of his notebooks -- the first 20 Penguins games that season. There are things in that book. ... To this day, when I open it up, I can hear him still saying those lines."

Maguire: "Bob was an educator. Bob taught us all. Taught us about hockey. Taught us about life."

Patrick: "I knew him, and I didn't realize how special he was."

Badger meant so much to so many, memorial services were held in four places: Colorado Springs, Minneapolis, Wisconsin and Pittsburgh.

He meant so much to Pittsburgh in so little time, his flame might forever burn longest here. Until Badger, the Arena knew no banners, no hockey in May, no puck fervor.

Mark Johnson: "That's the thing. It's amazing what all transpired in the year that he was there. Obviously, it's one memory that my mom, my brothers and my sisters won't forget for many, many years. Just from the impact it had on the city of Pittsburgh and, more important, the impact it had on him.

"Whether it was one year or 10 years, it put a smile on your face when you saw how he affected people there. Pittsburgh got to know him real quick."

Ten years.

Irony of ironies, the day after the Nov. 26 anniversary, the same as in 1991, the Penguins play host to the New Jersey Devils on Arena ice.

It would be fitting to trot out Badger patches and Badger memories.

It would be a great day for hockey.

In addition to The Big Picture, Chuck Finder writes a general-sports column exclusive to the http://www.post-gazette.com/ every Tuesday. He can be reached at cfinder@post-gazette.com