Coach Slap Shot

 By Eric Brady, USA Today, Jan. 21, 2009:

Monday, Boudreau will be inducted into the AHL Hall of Fame in Worcester, Mass. The Caps will be in the state for Tuesday's showdown with the conference-leading Boston Bruins, though he says he'd have come from Alaska.

Boudreau belongs in the AHL hall for winning Calder Cups as a player (Adirondack, 1992) and as a coach (Hershey, 2006) — and perhaps for his bit part in Slap Shot, the 1977 Paul Newman classic about the minors.

He and some Johnstown (Pa.) Jets teammates of the mid-1970s were recruited to skate against Newman's Charlestown Chiefs. You could call it Boudreau's 15 seconds of fame, if only he were on screen that long.

Boudreau raises his arms to celebrate a goal for the green-shirted Hyannisport Presidents, his disco-era hair flowing in a glorious mullet.

"I don't know if I scored it but no one can say I didn't," Boudreau says. The director "told us Charlestown isn't playing well and he wanted to focus on them getting barraged by shots. So — ham that I was — I just circled the net because that's where the camera was."


Thanksgiving daze

The phone rang around 6:30 on Thanksgiving morning, 2007. Boudreau startled awake, his heart racing.

"Any time the phone rings in the middle of the night, or very early in the morning, I worry about the worst," he says.

Boudreau's brother Barry was killed on Canadian Thanksgiving in 2006, struck by a car in a pedestrian accident. His father died on American Thanksgiving in 2003. This time, though, the Thanksgiving news was good, even if the offer came with an asterisk — interim coach.

"Bruce answered the phone and said, 'Oh my God,' " says his wife, Crystal. "But then I saw he was smiling, and I knew."

"I was like a referee looking to make a call," Boudreau says. "I thought, 'I've got to get the respect of these guys right off the bat or they're going to think I'm just a minor-league, interim guy.'



It would have been really easy for me to yell at David Steckel because I coached him (before). That wouldn't have garnered anything.

But to do it to Alex?

"I waited for him to make a mistake and about 20 minutes into practice he did and I said, 'Alex, you can't do that. You have to do this.' And he stayed behind me and said, 'Well, show me on the board.' I was in trouble if he balked. But Alex is very coachable. He always wants to learn."


Gabby

Boudreau, 54, picked up the nickname "Gabby" from a trainer when he was a teen. He hasn't stopped gabbing since.

"He talks to all of us," Caps left wing Dave Steckel says. "Every day he walks around the room and asks what you did last night or what movie you saw."


Family

Kasey, 26, Ben, 24, and Andy, 21, are from Boudreau's first marriage. They also live hockey lives. Kasey works part-time in promotions for the NHL's Ottawa Senators and the Ontario Hockey League's Ottawa 67's. Ben is a center for the South Carolina Stingrays of the East Coast Hockey League. Andy is a forward for the Brockville Tikis in the Eastern Ontario Junior B league.

Brady, 10, is a goalie in youth hockey. Boudreau gets so nervous he can barely watch. Crystal has no qualms.

"When Brady plays, it's a game," she says. "When Bruce coaches, it's our paycheck."

The paycheck is bigger now. But Boudreau has no regrets of his years spent in lesser leagues.

"People want to make my life this feel-good story by making it seem like it was really rotten in the minors and now this is really good," he says. "They don't understand. When you love the game, it's never a hardship."