HOCKEY NOTES

Mike Bossy

Right Wing

6-0 185

b. 22 Jan 1957, Montreal, Quebec

Michael Bossy smoked a pack of cigarettes a day throughout most of his career. He used a 54-inch hockey stick, long by most standards. His teammates bugged him about anything from his soft playing style to his big honker. But Bossy hardened and matured, ultimately into one of the deadliest shooters the game has ever known.

Bossy got his start in hockey with the Quebec Major Junior Laval National club at the tender age of 16. From day one, the boy seemed destined for greatness. In almost 300 total games in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, Bossy managed 338 goals and 602 points. Drafted 15th overall by the New York Islanders in the 1977 Amateur Draft, he took his place to the right of Bryan Trottier, a hard-nosed center. Together, the two men were dynamite. In 1977-78, Trottier reeled in 123 points while the 21-year-old Bossy scored 53 times in 73 games. Coach Al Arbour was, of course, very pleased: "Trots and Bossy, what a pair! I remember when we put them together for the first time. They were made for one another: it was obvious right away." With Bossy and Trottier on the first line, the Islanders won four straight Stanley Cups. The two were inseparable on the ice. Trottier, the quintessential all-around talent, always managed to find Bossy on the ice. It was as if they had a psychic connection.

However dandy a player Trottier was, Bossy was the star attraction. Arbour couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a talent as great as Bossy: "When he shoots, it doesn't even look like he touches the puck. He swoops on it like a jai alai player would. He's got the quickest hands I've ever seen on a hockey player, even quicker than Rocket Richard's." In 752 games, Bossy scored 573 goals and 1,126 points. To put that goal total into perspective -- if Bossy had played in the 1,487 games Wayne Gretzky played in, he might have scored more than 1,100 times!

Among Bossy's accomplishments are 3 Lady Byng trophies, a Conn Smythe, 2 goal-scoring crowns, 8 All-Star selections, and 4 Stanley Cup rings. He became a worthy member of the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1991. What a shame it is that Bossy, one of the purest scorers in the history of the game, was railroaded into early retirement by chronic back pain in 1987. 

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