Learn across disciplines. Scotty Bowman won nine Stanley Cups as a coach and was the winningest coach in NHL history.
One of his key principles was always trying to improve himself, using Flyers' coach Fred Shero as his model.
“Try to find out as much as you can about what is working and what isn’t working.”
All-Time goaltending great Ken Dryden wrote a book on Bowman and challenged him to name the eight top teams in hockey history and discuss why..."sharing his insight on players, strategies, tips on how he would coach with and against these players and lines combinations." Studying opponents was a major Bowman concept.
We don't get all the answers we need, "What did Scotty see that others didn’t? What did he know that others didn’t know? How did he find ways to last so long?" Dryden says that winners want to play for winners.
Not everyone likes Bowman (an understatement). "Bowman’s motivation can, at times, be described with one word — if that word is “psycho” — yet his team plays better than any other team has in decades."
He understands psychology. "He felt young Sergei Fedorov needed a kick in the pants, so he acquired Larionov, 35, an esteemed, soft-spoken Russian — and a guy Fedorov adored — to turn Sergei around."
Learn from the legends:
- Improve ourselves
- Find what works and doesn't
- Study opponents
- Winners want to be with winners
- Be a little 'psycho'
- Understand psychology
