The life and times of Bob Boucher can only be condensed and not told fully in limited space. The real story begins in a hockey atmosphere of greatness of an Ottawa family that delivered five brothers, including his father, to play in the National Hockey League at the same time in the 1920’s. Among their many distinctions, Bob’s dad, Billy, scored the first goal ever in the old Montreal Forum, where young Robert would eventually make his own mark.

It’s the story of a promising career cut short by a serious eye injury, a determination to stay in the game as a teacher, followed by love and marriage in the midst of a brilliant coaching career at all levels of the game. As a player, Bob was well on his way to a professional career, a great skater with a scoring touch for Montreal Junior Canadiens, Memorial Cup champions in 1957, a team coached by Sam Pollock and including Henri (Pocket Rocket) Richard and other future NHL’ers. Then there was the productive period with St. Michael’s Major Juniors in Toronto.

He launched his pro career with Hull-Ottawa Canadiens of the Eastern League when disaster struck. An accident cost him loss of vision in one eye, ending his NHL aspirations. Bob played into the 1960’s at minor league levels in the US and Europe, learning more of the game for future purposes. His first break came in 1967 when Pollock recommended him to Saint Mary’s Athletic Director Bob Hayes as the man to revive the university’s dormant hockey program.

From 1967 to 1982, the Huskies recorded 231 victories, only 33 losses and four ties and five years in a row from 1969 to 1973, Boucher took his team to the national college final, losing a couple of heartbreaking finishes. During his time at St. Mary’s, Bob began the St. Mary’s Hockey Camp for Champions. In 1982, Bob became assistant coach of the Philadelphia Flyers by GM Pat Quinn who immediately asked him to work on the worst power play in the league in the 1981-82 season. In 1982-83, the Flyers power play was the best in the NHL.

The lure of the ocean brought the Bouchers (wife Anne, daughters Trisha and Kelli and son Robbie) back to Nova Scotia.

Three years later Bob built another hockey dynasty. The Dartmouth Moosehead Mounties of the Nova Scotia Senior Hockey League were an aggregation of part time senior players he coached to five consecutive national finals and the Hardy Cup title in 1989-90, the first Nova Scotia team to win a Canadian senior championship since the Halifax Atlantics of 1952-54. Before and after that, Bob was assistant coach of the AHL Nova Scotia Oilers and head coach of the Cole Harbour Colts, Windsor Spitfires, and Halifax Oland Exports of the Maritime Junior A Hockey League.

But bald statistics don’t begin to reflect Bob Boucher’s contributions to hockey development in this province. He refined the art of coaching, a teacher and communicator who succeeded at every level, a passionate leader who taught players how to win with dignity and lose with grace.

The Bob Boucher story is best summed up by Quinn, now GM/ Coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs. “Bob was instrumental in setting up our National Coaches Accreditation System, through his writings on the game and development of the coaches level system. He has influenced the thinking of hockey coaches across Canada, but yet, while always the consummate teacher, passing on his knowledge, he was always the student, hungry to know more of the game and those who play it.”

Bob Boucher’s legacy to Nova Scotia is a quarter century of developing new and better directions for young athletes and coaches, teaching and inspiring Nova Scotia hockey players to become the best they could by sharing his knowledge and philosophies as a great communicator, passionately in love with the game.

Bob passed away in 2004.

Bio Courtesy of Pat Connolly