Dennis Chaptman, Milwaukee Journal
Nov. 27, 1991
Bob Johnson hated taking no for an answer.
It was too negative, too final, too compromising for a man who believed "every day is a good day for hockey."
So, when the former University of Wisconsin hockey coach died of brain cancer Tuesday at 60, close friends well aware of his prognosis still were shaken.
"If anybody could overcome the cancer odds, it was him. And the reality is, he won the battle anyway because of the way he lived," said Steve Alley, a former UW winger who also played on Johnson's 1976 Olympic team.
Johnson built Wisconsin hockey into a national power, using his optimism
and discipline.
And he wouldn't take no for an answer in rebuilding struggling National
Hockey League
teams, either.
When he left Wisconsin to coach the Calgary Flames from 1982-87, he led the team to its first Campbell Conference championship and the Stanley Cup finals.
After supervising USA Hockey for three years, he returned to coaching and led the Pittsburgh Penguins to their first Stanley Cup championship. It was an achievement his wife, Martha, called "the one unfinished thing in Bob's life."
Alley and former UW player Mike Eaves, now coach of the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League, had dinner with Johnson just days before he collapsed and was diagnosed with cancer last August.
"He was talking about when he coached the Calgary Flames and how they went through an 11-game losing streak. But every other word out of his mouth was about how good they were playing. Only Bob Johnson could think that," said Alley, an equities salesman in Chicago.
UW hockey coach Jeff Sauer, a friend of Johnson's for 30 years and his successor with the Badgers, said his enthusiasm was contagious.
"He could lose a 12-2 game and after talking to him, you had the funny feeling the score was actually 13-12 and he won," Sauer said.
Shortly after Johnson took the Calgary job, Madison insurance executive Danny Tzakis said he talked with Cliff Fletcher, then the Flames general manager.
'He told me the first month Bob was in Calgary they thought he was a phony, with all the optimism. But then they wanted to know what he was taking, because they wanted to take it too," said Tzakis, a longtime friend of Johnson's.
Perhaps Johnson's most notable triumph over long odds came at Wisconsin in 1981, with the "Back Door Badgers."
Wisconsin had been upset at home by Colorado College, then coached by Sauer, in the first round of the WCHA tournament.
Wisconsin won the first game of the two-game, total goals series, 8-2, but Colorado College came back and beat the Badgers, 11-4, in the second game.
Normally, that would have ruled the Badgers out of the national tournament. But, for the first time, the NCAA used a selection committee.
"I walked out of Dane County Coliseum saying, 'Wisconsin is going to get in, with all the politics and power,'" Sauer said.
Meanwhile, Johnson kept his team practicing for days with no promise of a tournament berth.
"There was a question in the players minds: was this all worth it? Some players thought the season was over. Most of us did," said Ron Vincent, a winger who played in 159 UW games.
Tournament bids were announced more than a week later over the phone to Johnson with 25 UW hockey players looking on. Wisconsin had won an at-large berth.
Johnson used the opportunity to propel the Badgers to a third national championship.
"It was classic, vintage Bob Johnson. It was almost as if he willed it to happen," said Thomas Osenton, a former administrative assistant for Johnson who is now publisher of The Sporting News in St. Louis.
"We became a team of destiny. A lot of coaches would have collected the jerseys and called it a season," Osenton said.
Vincent said Johnson cleverly used the moment to grab the community's interest in hockey.
"Bob was well-contacted in the hockey world.. He knew we were going to get a second chance. But he was going to use it as a platform to get the interest of the media and the players," said Vincent, now a Middleton commodities trader.
Johnson once angered former UW athletic director Ivy Williamson by snubbing an invitation to a party early in his tenure. Instead, Johnson went on a recruiting trip, hoping to avoid having to take no for an answer from a prized prospect.
Johnson also hated taking no for an answer on the ice and on the golf course.
John Taft, a defenseman who played for Johnson from 1972-'77, recalled how Johnson would suit up along with his team on Sundays at the Coliseum.
"He'd pick his team and they would be the Russians and he'd give another name to the other team," said Taft, who went on to play for the Detroit Red Wings.
"They were basically Sunday afternoon rink rat games. He still had some moves in his 40s. And what was his record in these games? Undefeated," said Taft, now vice president of a Madison telecommunications firm.
On the golf course, Johnson was not as successful.
Alley and Tzakis had a long-standing rivalry at the Maple Bluff Country Club. In 33 outings since 1977, Johnson, who paired up with numerous partners, was winless.
"The first time I played against him, I realized what made him so successful. It was all a circus until we got to the first tee. Then the game face went on, and it stayed that way," said Tzakis.
Johnson always carried a broken hockey stick in his golf bag, partly as a good luck charm.
"Maybe there was something to it. I once took his out when he was 2 under par on the fifth hole and he put the next two balls out of bounds," Tzakis said.
Osenton credited Johnson for boosting the exposure of college hockey and for making Wisconsin a highly respected program.
In a recent survey by The Sporting News, Osenton said 3,000 subscribers were asked what their favorite hockey teams were.
In an odd twist, the Badgers scored higher than NHL franchises in Quebec, Winnipeg, and Vancouver.
"There is only one reason; Bob Johnson," Osenton said.
Funeral services will be held Monday in Colorado Springs and simultaneous services will be held at 2 p.m. in Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and at Bethel Lutheran Church in Madison.
The Johnson family has requested that donations be made to the Bob Johnson Ice Hockey Foundation, 1837 S. Nevada Ave., Suite 225, Clorado Springs, CO, 80906.
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