Nobody has forced Bob Boughner to spend his retirement sharpening skates.
He was free to leave the workforce after a long and distinguished career that began down on the line at Chrysler, but he returned after only 11 months away for a job in the family business, which just happens to be housed in the most famous hockey rink in town.
His son, also named Bob, is a part-owner of the Windsor Spitfires, a junior hockey team threatening to become something of a Canadian dynasty. Boughner and the father of another team co-owner work at Blades Pro Shop, where skate repair and good conversation are among the services offered.
“It just gets us off the street and gives us something to do,” Boughner said. “And I enjoy it. I have a passion for talking to the people. You talk hockey all the time.”
And hockey has become the talk of the town in Windsor again this spring, with the Spitfires about to embark on an improbable defence of their Memorial Cup title. Windsor claimed its first Canadian championship last year, and will head to the tournament in Brandon, Man., this week after rallying from a 3-0 deficit in one OHL playoff series — and sweeping the No. 1-ranked team in the country in another.
The Spitfires are a resilient, veteran team loaded with talent. Forward Taylor Hall is all but assured to be among the first three selections made at next month’s NHL Entry Draft, while teammates such as defenceman Ryan Ellis (Nashville) and wingers Zack Kassian (Buffalo) and Greg Nemisz (Calgary) have already heard their names called in the first round.
And the root of the success appears to be based with the local ownership group, which is comprised of Peter Dobrich, Warren Rychel and Boughner, the latter two being former NHL players whose fathers now work together. They only bought in four years ago, and their players bought in almost instantly.
With the younger Boughner as their coach, the Spitfires advanced from a 18-win season in 2006-07 to the first Memorial Cup in franchise history only two years later. Boughner has been named the Canadian Hockey League’s coach of the year in each of the past two seasons, and was recently linked to speculation over an NHL coaching vacancy with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Boughner, 39, was born and raised in Windsor. He made a name for himself in the NHL as a meat-and-potatoes defenceman with the Buffalo Sabres and made millions with the Calgary Flames, but always returned to his blue collar home in southwestern Ontario.
“It’s sort of a small town feel here, and there’s a lot of people who have really, in the last couple of years, really dove into the Spitfires,” Boughner said. “People will recognize me from time-to-time because I’m from here, I’m a hometown guy and I’ve played. But now it’s not so much, ’Bob Boughner, the retired NHL guy,’ it’s ’Bob Boughner, the coach of the Spitfires.”’
Even so, there are definite similarities in the two men.
Boughner, the player, was bruising and physical. He knocked Philadelphia Flyers forward Keith Primeau out of a playoff game with one hit and gave Carolina’s Rod Brind’Amour a concussion on another. Former Toronto Maple Leafs captain Mats Sundin had the third-longest iron man streak in the game until Boughner drilled him into the boards.
“One of the things, as a player, that Bobby had to do was, he had to be fully prepared for the challenge that was going to meet him every single night,” said former Flames general manager Craig Button. “He wasn’t the type of player who could just get by. He didn’t have that capability, so Bobby was going to get by through his physical effort, through his mental effort and through his preparatory effort.”
Button, who is now an analyst with the NHL Network, said that kind of training serves Boughner well as a coach.
“We all know what kind of a player he was,” Ellis said. “He was a hard-nosed grinder kind of guy, and he worked hard for every piece of ice he got. I think that’s a little different from some of the guys on our team — but then again, you can see similarities in other guys.”
Windsor needed a strong work ethic to rebound at the Memorial Cup last year, when it became the first team in tournament history to win the championship after losing both of its first two games. And the team faced a situation that was just as dire this spring.
The Spitfires rolled through their first two series in the OHL playoffs, sweeping the Erie Otters and the Plymouth Whalers before meeting the Kitchener Rangers in the conference final. The series seemed at the opening to be a mere formality, a warm-up before the inevitable clash between Windsor and Barrie, the No. 1 team in the country.
Kitchener had other ideas, winning the first three games of the best-of-seven series, with a chance to claim the sweep on home ice. The Rangers lost Game 4 and were never able to regain their footing.
Windsor went on to sweep Barrie to book passage to Brandon, where they will open the tournament with a game against the host Wheat Kings on May 14.
“I’ll tell you, the comeback last year at the Memorial Cup definitely helped us this year against Kitchener,” Boughner said. “Even though we had to play four elimination games and our backs were against the wall, I think the one thing we did do was draw on our experience — every guy in there knew that we just had to win a game and get rolling again.”
Boughner said he lives five minutes from his office in Windsor, a hard-bitten industry city with the highest unemployment numbers in Canada. He said he would “love” to go through the interview process for an NHL job, but only under the right circumstances.
He is married with four children he is happy to raise in his hometown, along with the help of his father, who is called “Senior” to avoid confusion around the Spitfires’ offices.
“I keep telling people, ’We’re living the dream,”’ the elder Boughner said. “To own a team in the OHL is unbelievable, but to get your hometown team? It’s once-in-a-lifetime.”