As friends, acquaintances, dignitaries and former and current UW players entered Bethel Lutheran Church for the memorial service, they were each given a game program. At least, Bob Johnson would have called it a game program. Bob Johnson was pictured on the cover, wearing a beige suit and an It's-Great-to-Be-a-Badger smile on his face. A scaled down replica of the Stanley Cup was in Johnson's hand.

This was a celebration of the life of Robert N. Johnson.

This was the way the family wanted it.

This was the way Badger Bob would have wanted it.

This was one of four memorial services conducted simultaneously on December 2, 1991. The others were in Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and Calgary. The funeral was in Colorado Springs. UW hockey coach Jeff Sauer and Madison insurance executive Danny Tzakis were among the pallbearers, which also included Mark and Peter Johnson, U.S. Olympic coach Dave Peterson, Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Craig Patrick and Calgary Flames scout Al Godfrey.

About 300 or so attended the Bethel Lutheran service. The University of Wisconsin was represented by Chancellor Donna Shalala, Athletic Director Pat Richter, and outgoing Athletic Board Chairman Roger Formisano. Gov. Tommy Thompson sat behind them. For the most part, this was a hockey crowd. Many people who helped Johnson get the sport off the ground in the community were present. And they were joined by many current Wisconsin players. Monday's practice was pushed back to allow them to attend.

Meanwhile, Johnson's former players were sprinkled throughout the church. And they listened intently to the emotional remembrances of Bobby Suter, who grew up playing against Mark Johnson in the local youth programs before they teamed up together as Badgers in the mid-70s, and Phil Mendel, who was one of Johnson's closest friends and the longtime public address announcer for hockey at the Dane County Coliseum.

"It was just like Phil and Bobby were saying," said Max Bentley, who skated in 120 games for Johnson (1969-73), "you had to respect the guy because he devoted his whole life to hockey. He was nonstop."

"Bobby touched on a few things," added Gary Winchester, who skated in 144 games for Johnson (1970-74), "that you probably wouldn't know unless you knew the Hawk. Things that only a player would know."

Winchester admitted that many things flashed across his mind while Suter and Mendel were reminiscing.

"Everybody has their favorite (Bob Johnson) story,' Winchester noted. "There are just so many of them That was just the way he was."

Winchester recalled the early days of Badger hockey when Johnson spent as much time selling the sport as coaching it.

"I remember when I was a freshman and Hawk made us get our equipment on and go out to one of the shopping malls," Winchester said., "he had us stand in the middle of a platform while he was explaining hockey to Wisconsin. He was a marketer. And he was definitely a salesman."

And definitely a character. Winchester remembered how Johnson went up to his young son (who was enrolled in Johnson's Aspen hockey school) and announced, "You know, your dad got four goals against Brown his freshman year. First game he ever played."

Thinking about it, Winchester said laughing, "Now who the hell would ever remember that?"

The Hawk.

Badger Bob.

"I was teaching at his hockey school," Winchester said, bringing up another storyline, "and Bob was busy with the Canada Cup team and the exhibition schedule. The night before, they (Team USA) had beaten Canada. Bob is on the phone the very next morning (to Aspen) and he wants to know the score of the intrasquad game. He wants to know what the blue team did against the green team. That was just the way he was."

Bentley had his own stories. A few years earlier, he had taken his son to Minneapolis, where Team USA was scheduled to play a game at the Met Center. The Americans had played the night before and were skating that morning when the Bentleys pulled into the parking lot behind the rink.

"I hadn't seen him (Johnson) for awhile but we happened to run into him outside the Met," said Bentley. "Hey didn't say, 'How ya doing? How's your family?' Nothing like that. Instead, he just went into an explanation on how the game went the night before -- wiping his face, saying how great a game it was, how (Mark) Messier was flying up and down the ice and so on. That was just him. And you respected him for it. He loved the game. It was his life."

Through the game, Johnson influenced so many other lives. After their hockey-playing days were over, Bentley (Sault Ste. Marie) and Winchester (Calgary) both settled in the Madison area and raised families.

"He watched me play when I was 15 years old," said Winchester, "and if I hadn't met him, my life would be totally different."

That was just the way he was.

Elroy Hirsch was always one of Bob Johnson's biggest fans. And the coach had equal respect and admiration for the AD.

Crazylegs and Badger Bob.

It was a hell of a PR tag-team for 13 years, during which time Johnson and Hirsch celebrated three NCAA championships.

"He was the most enthusiastic person and coach I've ever been associated with," Hirsch said. "I've never been around anymore more dedicated."

Hirsch's predecessor, Ivan Williamson, recruited and hired Johnson from Colorado College in the spring of 1966. And at the time Johnson wasn't sure what he was getting himself into.

"I remember staying at Ivy's house that night," Johnson said, "and the next morning we had the press conference at Camp Randall Stadium. There were not very many people there. And there was not much enthusiasm. I was introduced as the new hockey coach but I don't think many people knew what hockey was all about. I know a lot of my friends kept asking me why I was taking that job. But, hey, I had a positive outlook." Always positive.

"I remember when I first took the athletic director's job," recalled Hirsch, who took over in 1969, "I was still on the West Coast when I got a phone call from a woman who identified herself as Martha Johnson." Martha Johnson?

The name rings a bell.

"Well," Hirsch continued, "the first thing she says, 'We need 20 scholarships.'" Hirsch broke into laughter.

Martha and her cow bell were part of the hockey tradition established by the Johnsons.

"Bob was a very determined and convincing guy," Hirsch remembered. "When he came in with something on his mind, it was hard to turn him down."

"A lot of coaches, when they're obsessed with winning, that's the only thing they've got on their mind and they forget sometimes the practical aspects of coaching. Bob encompassed everything though. He never forgot that these were kids playing and they would make mistakes. When I came to Wisconsin, he was the one big positive note in the whole program. And we hung our hat on it."

Bob Johnson eventually left Wisconsin to pursue his own dream in the National Hockey League. In 1986, Johnson led Calgary to the mountaintop, the Stanley Cup finals, where the Flames lost to Montreal. He learned a lot from that experience, filing the information for later reference.

In 1987, Johnson officially became the ambassador of USA Hockey, an amateur organization he supervised for three years as the executive director. But there was no tangible way to record wins and losses while championing the spot. So it was no surprise when Johnson returned to coaching with the Pittsburgh Penguins. He had a void to fill.

"My first choice has always been coaching," said Johnson on June 12, 1990. "When you're not doing something you've done all your life, you miss it. I missed it."

As a result, Johnson was able to once again focus on his three favorite things in life: coaching, teaching and talking hockey.

"I think the layoff helped," Johnson said. "I wasn't burned out and I was well-rested when I came back (to the NHL). I think I paced myself this year, too, better than I ever have. I didn't get so darn high emotionally. Some nights, I just kept saying to myself, 'Cool it, don't get so damn involved.' I never got on the guys once. Not once. I stayed positive even when things were going bad."

Vintage Badger Bob, again.

As it was, Johnson inherited a bad team, a rag-tag collection of underachievers and fat cats who had made the playoffs once in the previous eight years.

"Can you imagine that? A franchise since 1967 and they hadn't won a thing." Johnson said. "You go into Montreal or Boston and they've got all those banners and the great tradition. And here? Nothing. Not a thing up there in the rafters., Well, for the first time in 24 years, we're going to put a banner up."

In mid-October of 1991, the Pittsburgh Penguins raised their Stanley Cup championship banner in the Civic Arena. The rafters literally shook. Badger Bob watched on television from a hospital bed in Colorado Springs. The final mountain had already been climbed.

In early November, Pittsburgh defenseman Paul Stanton, who was injured, took in a Badger game at the Coliseum. Without prompting, the former UW All American turned to a pro scout in the radio booth and said, "He (Bob Johnson) was the most special person I've ever met."

The pro scout, Peter Johnson, wiped away tears.

Wearing his championship ring on his left hand, Stanton added, "I can still see his blue eyes bouncing behind the camera during the Stanley Cup."

We all can.

Bob Johnson was called Badger Bob because of the way he exemplified the college spirit. "As I evaluate coaching on all levels, probably the most important thing is enthusiasm," he once said. "This is the very thing you deal with in life, and if you're not enthusiastic about it, you probably won't have much success. I feel you must be able to enjoy what you're doing. I enjoy coaching hockey and because of the enjoyment I'm enthusiastic about it. People say they don't bring work or coaching home at the end of the day. I do. It's seven days a week, night and day, for me. All I talk and think about is hockey."

Bob Johnson was called a motivator because of the way he reached all of his players. "Probably the toughest part of coaching is to find out that some of your players don't take it quite as seriously as you do," he once said. "It's your bread and butter and you live and die with it. But you find out that for some players, maybe it's not that important. There are other things in the world that are important. And you have to accept that fact as a coach. We have to recognize individual differences. We're constantly trying to find out what players are thinking and what motivates them. Once we find out, we're off to the races because we have the chance to reach their potential."

Bob Johnson was called a winner because of the way he led his life and coached. And even though he lost his battle with cancerous brain tumors, he will continue to be remembered as the Hawk, badger Bob, a motivator, a winner and easily the most colorful, most positive and most enthusiastic person to have ever graced our presence here in Madison. Bob Johnson, eternally young at heart, was 60 when he died. In hockey circles, his memory will live on forever.