Salute to the Bruins' coach...

I dedicated a post to Al Arbour, my all-time favorite NHL coach, when he recently coached his 1,500th NHL game and celebrated with the Islanders. This post - on a sad day for hockey - is in memory of Boston Bruins coach Tom Johnson, the man behind the bench for the Bruins' '72 NHL Stanley Cup championship.

Former Bruins coach, Hall of Famer dies at Cape Cod home
November 23, 2007

The Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens lost a joint franchise legend on Wednesday night when Hockey Hall of Famer Tom Johnson died at his Cape Cod home.

Johnson, 79, was the last man to coach the Boston Bruins to the Stanley Cup, winning it in the 1971-72 season.

"If we all are allowed an ultimate friend, mentor, confidant and teacher, Tom Johnson was all of those to me. The Bruins and all of hockey have lost a great person," said Harry Sinden, the former club president and general manager, in a statement posted on the team's official Web site.

Canada's The Sports Network reported on its Web site that Johnson died of heart failure at his Falmouth home. He is survived by his wife Doris, son Tommy and daughter Julie.

In a 978-game (plus 111 playoff games) playing career that lasted 16 years and spanned three decades, the Baldur, Manitoba, native won six Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens, including five straight from 1956-60. In 1959, he interrupted the Norris Trophy-winning streak of Doug Harvey, the NHL's most celebrated defenseman prior to Bobby Orr.

When Montreal put Johnson on waivers at age 35 in 1963, the Bruins claimed him. He played two seasons with Boston but suffered a career-ending leg injury in a game against Chicago on Feb. 28, 1965.

In 1970, Johnson replaced Sinden as Bruins coach when the latter left the organization following the first of the two championships won in the Orr-Esposito era.

Recognizable by his bowtie, Johnson was behind the bench for the infamous seven-game 1971 upset at the hands of Ken Dryden and the Canadiens in between the Bruins' last two Cups. But in a TV interview for a NESN program reliving the rivalry between the teams, Gerry Cheevers, one of Boston's goaltenders in that series, went out of his way to exonerate Johnson.

"That wasn't the reason we lost. The players lost that series, not the coach," he said.

Johnson continued coaching into 1972-73 but in January, 1973, was fired by Sinden, who had returned to the organization as general manager that season. Johnson was a players' coach, but Sinden thought his team needed a taskmaster. So he replaced his friend with Armand "Bep" Guidolin, who had his own history with the Bruins as their youngest player ever at age 16.

At the conclusion of the 1972-73 season, Sinden appointed Johnson as his assistant GM, a job he held for 16 years. He was also named team vice president in 1979.

Johnson, who was elected into the Hall of Fame as a player in 1970, remained a familiar face around the Bruins until his death. Though he struggled to get around in recent years, he remained a jovial personality and was never was without an opinion. Asked before a Bruins-Canadiens game in 1995 if he felt conflicted in his allegiance between the club he played the majority of his career for and the one he became part of for the rest of his life, Johnson said, "Are you kidding? I hate those guys."

Contact Mick Colageo at

mcolageo@s-t.com