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Mike Bossy, the Hockey Corridor of Fame wing who performed a key position in propelling the New York Islanders to 4 consecutive Stanley Cup championships within the early Eighties, died on Friday at his dwelling in Montreal. He was 65.
Kimber Auerbach, director of communications for the Islanders, stated the trigger was lung most cancers. Bossy introduced he had the illness in October.
The Islanders, based as a Nationwide Hockey League growth group in 1972, received solely 12 video games of their first season on the Nassau Coliseum on Lengthy Island and weren’t significantly better the next season.
However they started reaching the playoffs below Normal Supervisor Invoice Torrey and Coach Al Arbour, who assembled groups that featured Bossy at proper wing and his linemates Bryan Trottier at heart, Clark Gillies at left wing, Denis Potvin on protection and Billy Smith in objective. (Gillies died of most cancers on Jan. 21 at 67.)
The Islanders defeated the Philadelphia Flyers, the Minnesota North Stars, the Vancouver Canucks and the Edmonton Oilers of their Stanley Cup championship run from 1980 to 1983, then misplaced to the Oilers within the 1984 cup closing.
The Canadian-born Bossy was among the many N.H.L.’s quickest skaters, and he possessed an uncanny skill to get off wrist pictures earlier than opposing goalies had any notion that the puck was coming their manner.
“Mike’s acquired the quickest arms I’ve ever seen,” Arbour, a former defenseman who had performed alongside Gordie Howe with the Detroit Purple Wings and Bobby Hull with the Chicago Black Hawks, as soon as stated.
Bossy twice led the N.H.L. in targets, with 69 within the 1978-79 season and 68 in 1980-81. He scored a minimum of 51 targets in every of his first 9 seasons earlier than a again harm restricted him to 38 targets in his final season. His 85 targets in 129 playoff video games have been probably the most in N.H.L. historical past on the time.
Bossy scored 573 targets and had 553 assists in 752 regular-season video games over 10 N.H.L. seasons, all with the Islanders.
He was elected to the Hockey Corridor of Fame in 1991.
A finesse participant and barely constructed, Bossy eluded laborious checks and refused to get into melees.
“Guys knew he wouldn’t combat,” Trottier instructed Sports activities Illustrated in 1999. “They’d punch him, spear him, it didn’t matter. He didn’t want a lot room. The man was so artistic, he might make one thing particular with only a half inch.”
“I in all probability developed what scouts known as my fast arms and fast launch extra out of self-defense than the rest,” Bossy recalled in his memoir, “Boss: The Mike Bossy Story” (1988, with Barry Meisel). “The N.H.L. was zoom, zoom, zoom in comparison with junior. I discovered to make fast passes and take fast pictures to keep away from getting hammered each time I had the puck.”
Bossy received the Woman Byng Trophy for gentlemanly play in 1983, 1984 and 1986. He incurred solely 210 penalty minutes.
He was chosen by the Islanders because the No. 15 decide within the 1977 N.H.L. beginner draft after being handed over by groups who, regardless of his outstanding goal-scoring in junior hockey, believed he didn’t have the checking abilities to outlive within the N.H.L.
It didn’t take lengthy for Bossy to show in any other case. He received the Calder Memorial Trophy for 1977-78 because the N.H.L.’s rookie of the yr, scoring a rookie-record 53 targets that stood for 15 years. He received the Conn Smythe Trophy as probably the most priceless participant within the 1982 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Michael Bossy was born on Jan. 22, 1957, in Montreal, considered one of 10 youngsters of Borden and Dorothy Bossy. His father was of Ukrainian descent, and his mom was English. Borden Bossy flooded the yard of the household’s condo constructing throughout winters to create an ice rink, and Mike discovered to skate at 3.
He dropped out of Laval Catholic Excessive College to hitch the Laval Nationwide group of the Quebec Main Junior Hockey League close to the tip of its 1972-73 season and performed in 4 full seasons for Laval, scoring 309 targets.
Then got here his choice by the Islanders within the draft.
Bossy’s N.H.L. profession was reduce brief by a power harm. At the start of the Islanders’ 1986 coaching camp, he skilled again pains. He missed 17 video games throughout the common season and injured his left knee within the playoffs, when the Flyers eradicated the Islanders in a preliminary spherical. Medical doctors finally discovered that he had two injured discs that couldn’t be repaired by surgical procedure. He sat out the 1987-1988 season, then retired from hockey in October 1988.
The Islanders retired Bossy’s No. 22 in March 1992, making him their second participant accorded the respect, after Potvin.
Bossy’s survivors embrace his spouse, Lucie Creamer Bossy, and their daughters Josiane and Tanya.
Bossy, who was bilingual, pursued enterprise ventures and broadcasting work in Canada after his enjoying profession ended. When he was discovered to have most cancers, he took a go away from his submit as a hockey analyst for the Montreal-based French-language channel TVA Sports activities.
For all that Bossy and his Stanley Cup champion Islanders completed, they lacked the charisma of his modern, the Oilers’ Corridor of Fame heart Wayne Gretzky and Gretzky’s Edmonton groups that received 4 Stanley Cups within the Eighties.
“We by no means acquired one millionth of the popularity we must always,” Bossy as soon as instructed Sports activities Illustrated. “We had a really low-key group. They didn’t need guys doing an excessive amount of as a result of they thought the hockey may endure. Folks don’t speak about us within the first point out of nice groups.”
He added: “I assume as I become old I get uninterested in telling folks I scored greater than 50 9 consecutive years. The whole lot I’m saying makes it sound like I’m bitter, however I’m not by any means. It’s simply that if you do one thing effectively, like our group did, you’d wish to get acknowledged for it.”
As for comparisons with Gretzky, Bossy instructed The New York Instances in January 1986, when he turned the eleventh participant in N.H.L. historical past to attain 500 targets: “Folks name him the Nice Gretzky. I can’t compete with that. I do really feel comfy with what I’ve helped my group obtain. Whether or not I consider Wayne Gretzky as the best factor since apple pie is one other query.”
Maia Coleman contributed reporting.
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