Islanders legend Arbour dead at 82
Arbour, who led Isles to 4 straight Stanley Cups, dies at 82:
AL ARBOUR, the coach who turned the basement-dwelling Islanders into an NHL dynasty, died Friday at the age of 82.
The cause of Arbour’s death was not immediately announced, but it had been reported earlier this year that he had been receiving treatment for Parkinson’s disease and dementia near his home in Sarasota, Fla.
“Al will always be remembered as one of if not the greatest coaches ever to stand behind a bench in the history of the National Hockey League,” Islanders GM Garth Snow said in a statement.
The team that Arbour, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1996, led to four consecutive Stanley Cups from 1980 to 1983 is considered one of the great New York sports dynasties, along with Joe Torre’s Yankees, of the last 40 years. No other team in a major professional sport has won four consecutive titles since the Islanders dominated the NHL in the early 1980s.
“To me, Al was the Vince Lombardi of hockey,” Islanders star Pat LaFontaine, who joined the team in 1984, told the Daily News. “The impact he had on all of us as players and people is second to none. And the five-year run the Islanders had under Al, which I was a part of at the very end, is unmatched. It will go down as one of the great dynasty teams in professional sports, and it was Al who got it all to mesh together.”
In 19 seasons behind the Islanders bench, Arbour won 740 games, the most for any coach with one NHL team. His 782 total victories are second only to Scotty Bowman, who gave Arbour his first coaching job with St. Louis.
Arbour led the Islanders to 15 playoff appearances and 119 playoff victories. Arbour’s Isles won 19 straight playoff series in the 1980s before they were finally dethroned by Edmonton in the 1984 finals. “Al used to say, that negative energy you are feeling, turn it into positive energy,” Islaneders Hall of Fame defenseman Denis Potvin said. “He just never thought anything was insurmountable.”
Arbour was a solid if unspectacular defenseman who played for four teams — the Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Black Hawks, St. Louis Blues and Toronto Maple Leafs — during a career that spanned from 1949 to 1971. He was a member of three teams to win the Stanley Cup (Detroit, Chicago and Toronto).
Arbour, later nicknamed “Radar” after the character on the TV show “M*A*S*H,” was the last player in the NHL to wear glasses on the ice, and in trading cards and team photos looked more like a “Mad Men” era accountant than a defensive specialist.
But Arbour made an indelible mark on the NHL when general manager Bill Torrey hired him in 1973 to coach the Islanders, a team that had won just 12 games in its inaugural season, 1972-1973. Under Arbour, the Islanders won their first Stanley Cup in 1980, defeating the fearsome — and hated — Philadelphia Flyers in six games.
Bob Nystrom, who scored the overtime goal against Philadelphia to seal the Isles’ first Stanley Cup in 1980, said Arbour’s impact on his players extended far beyond hockey.
“Al probably had the biggest impact on my life of any person except for my parents,” Nystrom told the Daily News. “He taught us how to be hockey players, how to be winners, how to be men. More than hockey, he taught us about life, and that — as much as all of the success we had together — is what I will remember about him.”
Arbour is survived by his wife, Claire, and children Joann, Jay, Julie and Janice.
“I feel very blessed and fortunate to have played and learned from him at a very young age,” LaFontaine said. “He was a master at bringing the best out of his players and then putting it together collectively as a team. The hockey world lost a great man and a legend today.”
To me, Al was the Vince Lombardi of hockey.
PAT LAFONTAINE