Joe Mullen: "He was a teacher. He taught me quite a bit about the game. When I got traded to Calgary, it was kind of like learning hockey all over again."

Al MacInnis, when asked who his biggest hockey infulence was: "It would have to be the late "Badger" Bob Johnson. He came into the Flames organization and there was a real transition period there where they brought a lot of young players in and I was one of them and they showed a lot of patience for a number of years. Timing was everything and he showed a lot of patience in a lot of us. He certainly helped a lot of our careers. He was a great guy. I remember one time we lost 10 in a row and the media, he had the media. . . it was almost like we won 10 in a row the way they were writing about us."

Rob Andringa: "He may have spoiled us. He built the program and got everyone used to winning. And we didn't know at that time, but you look back now and he and Scotty Bowman and the guy who coached all those great Russian teams (Tarasov) might be the three greatest coaches of all time."

Pat Lafontaine: "There's not a player in this country that he hasn't affected in one way or another."

Cliff Fletcher: "He was the most positive man I ever met."

E.M. Swift: [Wisconsin is the] "best-run, best-promoted, most enthusiastically supported, best-coached, most profitable college hockey program anywhere. That it is in Madison instead of Boston or Minneapolis is exclusively because of the efforts of the man behind the proboscis."

Dean Talafous: "I remember when Bob recruited me. He watched me play the first game of my senior year.

"Afterward, he came up to me, introduced himself and said, 'I want you to know that you've got a full scholarship at Wisconsin. We're not going to bother you. You're a great player and I want you to concentrate on having a great senior year. Enjoy every minute of it.' Every couple of weeks he would call, or an assistant would call, just to stay in touch with me. And it was never 'You've got to come here.' It was always, 'How's your year going? How's your family?'

"Minnesota came in and offered me a full scholarship at the very end of the recruiting. But I told them no. Bob wanted me from Day One and he never wavered. He believed in me and that's why I wanted to play at Wisconsin.

"He knew the pieces that had to be put together to win and he went after the particular players and individuals. Most importantly, he put them together as a team. Everybody had a role. Everybody felt important. Everybody played together. It was fun. It was positive. We very seldom won the league, but we were one of the best teams at the end of the season. He never panicked. He brought us along slowly...

"In 1973, I don't think anyone had an idea we were going to win a national championship because the program was still young. I can remember the Cornell game (in the semifinals) and we were down 5-2 in the third period and any other coach would have yelled and screamed, 'You guys are blowing it. You have to get going.' Not Bob. He was upbeat. He kept saying 'Keep going, keep working. We get one, we get two. Anything can happen.' I don't think any of us ever thought we were going to lose that game. That was Bob Johnson at his best."

Ken Johannson: "He loved the game. If there was as much writen about hockey as other sports, Bob would be listed with John Wooden or Bobby Knight or Don Shula -- coaches of that ilk."