William Scott Bowman OC (born September 18, 1933) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey head coach.
He coached the St. Louis Blues, Montreal Canadiens, Buffalo Sabres, Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings.
[1][2] As head coach, Bowman has won a record nine Stanley Cup championships; five with the Canadiens (1973, 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979), one with the Penguins (1992) and three with the Red Wings (1997, 1998, and 2002).
He was director of player development for the 1991 Penguins, consultant with the 2008 Detroit Red Wings, and senior advisor of hockey operations for the 2010, 2013, and 2015 Chicago Blackhawks.
[5] Soon thereafter, he moved into a coaching job with the Peterborough Petes of the Ontario Hockey League (OHA), the Montreal Canadiens' junior farm team.
[6] The Blues made it to the Stanley Cup finals in their first three years of existence as Western Conference (Expansion) champs.
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.
[13] The reason for the falling-out was the team's decision to pass him over as the new general manager of the club in September 1978, as they hired Irving Grundman, a Pollock protégé, instead.
[29][30][31] In the summer, Bob Johnson, who had just won the Stanley Cup with the Penguins, was diagnosed with brain cancer, forcing him to step down before he died on November 26, 1991.
Bowman took over as the team's head coach[32][33][34] where the Penguins repeated as Stanley Cup champions in a season dedicated to Johnson.
In the playoffs, the Penguins were upset in seven games in the Patrick Division finals by the New York Islanders coached by Al Arbour, a former Bowman player with the Blues.
According to an apocryphal story, Bowman had difficulty in the maze-like tunnels of the San Jose Arena, eventually having to be rescued after getting lost and twice locking himself into rooms.
Bowman decided in February 2002 that he would retire at the end of the season, and he went out as a winner as his Red Wings won the Stanley Cup by defeating the Carolina Hurricanes, four games to one.
[41][42] Bowman has coached the Canada men's national ice hockey team at the international level twice in his career.
Bowman later appeared in an interview on Hockey Night in Canada on January 12, 2008, confirming that he was very close to taking the job only to be turned away by Richard Peddie, CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd.
[45][46] In July 2008, he took a position as senior advisor of hockey operations for the Chicago Blackhawks to work alongside his son Stan Bowman, who was the general manager.
[49][50] As of January 2018, Bowman was living in Sarasota, Florida, attending all of the Tampa Bay Lightning home games in his role as the senior advisor of hockey operations for the Chicago Blackhawks, which were managed by his son Stan Bowman until October 26, 2021, when Stan resigned from the Blackhawks organization.