Toe Blake’s Eight Cups and the Montreal Education of Scotty Bowman

“If you change your players better than the other team over 70 or 80 games, you’ll have a big edge,” Scotty Bowman said.

Bowman was recalling Toe Blake during his October 19 appearance on 100% Hockey With Millard & Shannon. Blake’s lessons on line changes and staying onside became part of Bowman’s own coaching. Their connection began while Bowman was learning the job in Montreal, years before he coached against Blake in a Stanley Cup Final.

The player who built a Canadiens dynasty

Before coaching, Hector “Toe” Blake played left wing alongside Maurice Richard and Elmer Lach on Montreal’s Punch Line.

Blake had already won the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player in 1938–39, scoring 24 goals and 23 assists in 48 games. His playing career brought three Stanley Cups: one with the Montreal Maroons in 1935 and two with the Canadiens, in 1944 and 1946. He later coached Maurice Richard, his former linemate, on Montreal’s championship teams.

Blake replaced Dick Irvin behind the Canadiens’ bench in 1955. From 1955–56 through 1967–68, he went 500-255-159 and won eight Stanley Cups. Montreal won in each of his first five seasons, from 1956 through 1960, and again in 1965, 1966 and 1968. His Canadiens reached the playoffs in all 13 seasons.

The records also show the difference between his two championship eras. Montreal went 8–0 in the 1960 playoffs, winning both series in a six-team NHL. By his final season, expansion had doubled the league to 12 teams. The Canadiens needed three series victories in 1968 and finished 12–1.

The practice habits Bowman remembers

“The players had to know when it was time to get off as a group and they had to put the puck in the right place at the right time,” Bowman said.

Bowman’s own instruction for reaching the bench was simple: “Take five strides and then coast the last two.”

Blake was just as demanding at the offensive blue line. Bowman remembered watching a practice and asking why Blake had whistled an entry offside when the player appeared to be onside.

“Why do you make it close?” Bowman recalled Blake asking his players.

Blake taught that “the puck carrier controlled the blue line,” Bowman said. For the supporting forwards: “You can’t control the blue line because he may … take a little swerve. He has to wait a little bit. So, don’t go offside.”

Where Bowman learned to coach

Bowman’s access to those practices came before his first NHL coaching appointment. In a 2023 interview with Le Journal de Montréal, he recalled working for paint company Sherwin-Williams, near the Montreal Forum. His employer let him take an early lunch to watch the Canadiens practice. Irvin welcomed him, and Blake subsequently took him under his wing.

Bowman was also coaching local minor and junior hockey. In 1956, Sam Pollock hired him as an assistant with the Hull-Ottawa Junior Canadiens, part of Montreal’s development system. Pollock later became the Canadiens’ general manager.

“In 1956, I was very lucky that Sam Pollock offered me a position in the Canadiens organization,” Bowman told Le Journal de Montréal, translated from French.

Hull-Ottawa won the Memorial Cup in 1958. Bowman then coached the Peterborough Petes from 1958–59 through 1960–61. His subsequent assignments included Hull-Ottawa’s professional team, the Omaha Knights, the Montreal Junior Canadiens and the Sherbrooke Castors. The path to an NHL bench took him through junior and minor professional hockey.

He joined the expansion St. Louis Blues in 1967 and took over as head coach during their first season. The Blues reached the 1968 Stanley Cup Final, where Bowman faced Blake’s Canadiens. Montreal swept the series in four games. Blake’s eighth championship came against the coach who had watched him teach at the Forum.

Back to Montreal, then past Blake’s record

Bowman returned to Montreal as head coach for 1971–72. Claude Ruel and Al MacNeil had coached the Canadiens in the three years since Blake’s retirement; MacNeil had just won the 1971 Cup. Bowman’s first championship as an NHL head coach followed in 1973, with four more in succession from 1976 through 1979.

In eight Montreal seasons, Bowman compiled a 419-110-105 regular-season record and went 70–28 in the playoffs. His 1976–77 Canadiens finished 60-8-12 for 132 points in 80 games, then won 12 of 14 playoff games. Blake’s pupil had coached another Montreal dynasty.

Bowman eventually won nine Stanley Cups as a head coach: five in Montreal, one with Pittsburgh and three with Detroit. The ninth, in 2002, moved him past Blake’s eight. More than two decades after his final season behind an NHL bench, he was still recommending Blake’s practice methods.

A Pittsburgh coach asked Bowman for advice at a prospect game in Buffalo last year. Bowman recommended the same onside drill, with a close entry now capable of costing a team a goal on video review.

“Even if it’s close, I’ll blow it because the camera is not going to lie,” Bowman said of how he would run the practice today.