Scotty Bowman

William Scott Bowman,(born September 18, 1933) is a Canadian Hockey coach. He coached the St. Louis Blues, Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey League (NHL). He is currently the head coach of the Buffalo Sabres of the Timeless Fantasy Hockey League (TFHL).

As head coach, Bowman has won a five Stanley Cup championships with the Montreal Canadiens (1973, 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979) as part of the National Hockey League (NHL).Scotty Bowman has also won the Jack Adams Award in 1976-77 as the head coach of the Montreal Canadiens of the national hockey league (NHL).

Early Years
Bowman was born on September 18, 1933 in Verdun, Quebec, Canada. He played minor league hockey until a fractured skull resulting from a slash by Jean-Guy Talbot ended his playing aspirations.

Early Coaching Career
He started coaching with the Ottawa Junior Canadiens in the Quebec Junior Hockey League in 1956. Two years later, the team coached by Bowman and managed by Sam Pollock won the Memorial Cup in 1958. Soon thereafter, he moved into a coaching job with the Peterborough Petes of the Ontario Hockey League (OHA), the Montreal Canadiens' junior farm team.

St. Louis Blues
Bowman moved into the NHL in 1967 when he joined the expansion St. Louis Blues as assistant coach to Lynn Patrick coach-manager. However, Patrick resigned after a slow start, and Bowman started as coach at age 34. The Blues caught fire, and made it to the Stanley Cup finals in their first three years of existence. Bowman also served as Manager after Lynn Patrick gave up the job in summer of 1968. Bowman remained manager-coach in St. Louis until the end of the 1970–71 season, but left due to a dispute with team ownership.

Montreal Canadiens
Bowman then joined the Montreal Canadiens as head coach. Though the Canadiens were the defending champions, Al MacNeil had been sacked as head coach due to accusations of favoritism toward the team's anglophone players. Bowman was hired in part because he is fluently bilingual in English and French. His team lost in the first round of the playoffs in 1972 but won the Stanley Cup in 1973. The Canadiens would make the playoffs over the next two seasons but lost in the first and third rounds, as the rival Philadelphia Flyers won the Stanley Cup.

>br? From 1976 to 1979, Bowman won four consecutive Stanley Cups with a talented Canadiens squad that included Guy Lafleur, Steve Shutt, Larry Robinson and Ken Dryden. Bowman's team won at least 45 games in each of his eight seasons. However, after a falling-out with ownership, Bowman stepped down after the 1978–79 season. The reason for the falling-out was the team's decision to pass him over as the new General Manager of the club in 1978 after Sam Pollock's retirement, as they hired Irving Grundman instead. Bowman remains the coach with the second highest winning rate in Canadiens history after Toe Blake.

Buffalo Sabres
For the 1979–80 season, he moved to the Buffalo Sabres as Head Coach just as the NHL merged with WHA and became the TFHL.