O'Donnell: Blackhawks fans can rock 'n roll with Ken Dryden's book on Scotty Bowman
KEN DRYDEN ISN'T MERELY a Canadian treasure.
He is all about the mind and spirit of a man who refuses to settle:
• Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender who left the game in his prime to pursue law and government;
• Best-selling author, including “The Game” (1983), which Sports Illustrated called “One of the 10 greatest sportsbooks ever written”;
• Citizen-attorney who was a very serious candidate for Prime Minister of Canada;
• Analyst alongside Al Michaels on ABC's mythic “Miracle on Ice”;
• Stanley Cup master who in less that eight full NHL seasons was a key reason the Montreal Canadiens won six times.
More seasoned Blackhawks fans are far too familiar with the first of Dryden's Cups.
That came in May 1971 when — at age 23 — he held Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita and all scoreless for the closing 32 minutes of a Finals Game 7, silencing Chicago Stadium with a 3-2 victory.
Now he has made partial literary amends to ‘Hawks fans with a marvelous paean to Scotty Bowman, the hockey deity who assisted in the three Chicago Cups of the past decade.
“Scotty: A Hockey Life Like No Other” (Penguin Random House, $29.95) was released this winter to grand acclaim in Canada and minimal fanfare in the United States.
It traces the life and mind of Bowman, from his upbringing in Verdun, Quebec, through the 14 Stanley Cups he won as a coach or executive. That includes his current role as senior adviser of hockey ops to general manager Stan Bowman — his son — and the Blackhawks.
Why?
“Scotty's hockey life essentially touches the entire post-World War II era of the league, more than seven decades,” Dryden told The Daily Herald.
“No one has had more success. So the case can be put forth that the story of Scotty is the story of the modern NHL.
“It's also much more than just being about his excellence, the fact that he quite probably is the greatest professional team coach of all time, and I'm including (Bill) Belichick, Phil Jackson and all others in that statement,” Dryden added.
“His is a mind that doesn't look back. He wouldn't know how to rest on any laurels.
“He's always looking forward, still watching so many games with the same night-to-night methods and intensity and insight that he did 70 years ago.
“Even today, all he wants is the team he is working with to get further along on the path to yet another Stanley Cup.”
To a degree, Dryden somewhat undersells the 2008 linking of Bowman to the Blackhawks of Rocky Wirtz and John McDonough.
“The most relevant foundation of the story of the contemporary Blackhawks is that it is the story of the post-Bill Wirtz era,” Dryden said.
“That new era presented a tremendous window of opportunity. A new culture was allowed to take hold, the team had been extremely fortunate in getting young talent like (Jonathan) Toews and (Patrick) Kane and many others came on board to do their jobs very well.
“Chicago is a great hockey town. I don't believe in saying it deserved a winner, but it certainly deserved a consistently competitive, energized NHL team.
“The Blackhawks of (Joel) Quenneville and Kane and Toews will go down in history as the first dynasty of the NHL's post- (salary) cap era. And that's an era in which success and non-success in the league has become such a finite and far more unpredictable matter.”
Ken Dyden's “Scotty: A Hockey Life Like No Other.”
It is artful.
It is masterful.
It is must reading for those who want to be among the most probing and informed about the modern NHL and those three ecstatic springs of skate on West Madison Street.
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• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.