A few weeks ago, my favourite six-year-old asked a thoughtful question: “How old do you have to be to read?” The first six words — “How old do you have to be…” — can be asked of many situations, of many people.
Even hockey coaches: “How old do you have to be to win a Stanley Cup?”
The coach who wins this year’s Stanley Cup will be 45 years old, or 57. Before that little girl’s current school year ends, there will be a winner, either Kris Knoblauch (45, Edmonton) or Paul Maurice (57, Florida). For the winning coach, it will be his first Stanley Cup.
These two are contrasts in conquests.
Knoblauch made his name as a university coach in Alberta, has only coached Edmonton in the National Hockey League team, and is completing his rookie season. Maurice was a 10-year-old in Sault Ste. Marie when Wayne Gretzky played his only season of major junior hockey there, and has been around. The Panthers are his sixth team (fourth franchise) and only Scotty Bowman has coached more NHL games, so he has coached the most without winning. Knoblauch is 295th on that list.
A more legendary list awaits.
It starts with Bowman, whose first Cup was at age 39, and his ninth and last at 68. He won with Montreal, Pittsburgh and Detroit, retiring the day after passing Montreal’s great Toe Blake.
How old do you have to be these days?
In the last 25 seasons, 20 coaches have won the Cup. Their average age when they won was 50. Just one was younger than 40, Pittsburgh’s Dan Bylsma, who hasn’t coached an NHL team in seven years, but gets another chance next season, in Seattle. Bylsma is 55. The oldest first-time winner in the last quarter-century — and ever — is Bruce Cassidy, 58 when his Vegas Golden Knights won last June.
Winning the Stanley Cup can be deceiving. The only coach to win three since 1999 is Joel Quenneville and he’s not only unemployed but undesirable for the last three seasons, indefinitely suspended. The most desirable was Mike Babcock, who signed the richest coaching contract ever — eight years, $50 million — as the only coach to win Olympic gold, World Cup, World Championships, World Juniors, and one Stanley Cup (Detroit). His reputation is also now sullied.
As an aside, when Dick Irvin won his fourth Stanley Cup (only Bowman, Blake and Toronto’s Hap Day won more), he signed the richest coaching contract ever…two years, $20,000.
The youngest Stanley Cup champion coach? That would be Montreal’s Claude Ruel, who had just turned 30. He replaced the irreplaceable, Toe Blake, and won the Cup as a rookie, then missed the playoffs the next year and quit half a season later because the pressure was too much for him. A decade later he briefly replaced Bernie Geoffrion, who found the pressure for him. Ruel’s teams won 63 per cent of their regular-season games and 66 per cent of playoff games.
In my years coveriing sports, I interviewed or at least encountered 13 Stanley Cup-winning coaches. While it’s never a prerequisite for winning, none was a nicer person than Ruel, the answer to the six-year-old’s question.
You have to be 30.
