Milwaukee Admirals co-owner Lloyd Pettit met Johnson only once, at the Inaugural Badger Hockey Showdown at the Bradley Center two years ago. But Pettit and Johnson had much in common.
"He was very much of a gentleman, very considerate of the game itself and the players" Pettit said. "He loved the game very dearly. He treated it with a great deal of reverence, similar to the way I feel."
Pettit said Johnson made an immediate impression on him.
"The most important thing that impressed me was not only his handshake, but his look in the eye," Pettit said. "I've dealt with a number of people who'd look you straight in eye and lie to you. Not Bob."
Buzz Schneider, who played for Johnson in three world championships tournaments and the 1976 Olympics, recalled him as a great teacher and motivator.
"He had a great attitude on life," said Schneider. "It was hockey day-in and day-out. But he sure made it fun."
Schneider saw first-hand the meticulous side of Johnson, whose detailed notebooks, always at hand during practices and games, became legend.
"When we first went to Europe -- I must have been 17 -- he was smart enough to take all the positive things of the European teams and put them in his game. He copied the best," said Schneider, now a semi-truck salesman in the Twin Cities. "I've never seen a guy take so many notes, and he used them He left no stone unturned."
"I remember we lost in 1975 in Prague, 15-1. They thoroughly beat us, and he came in the locker room and said 'You played great; they played like the Montreal Canadiens.' A typical coach would say "You guys stink,' but he turned it around, and we were all laughing at the end."
Schneider later played for the Admirals and then was part of the 1980 Olympic gold-medal team. He said Johnson laid much of the groundwork for the Lake Placid "Miracle on Ice" with his US team's fourth place finish in the 1976 Innsbruck Games.
"We weren't that far away in '76., but we didn't have the depth of talent of the '80 team," he said. "By '80, there were better players to go around. I think he was instrumental in promoting American hockey and American players."
Lowell MacDonald first met Johnson in 1978 after a series of knee surgeries forced MacDonald to retire as a player with the Pittsburgh Penguins. MacDonald then became hockey coach at University School [in Milwaukee] and served as a scout for the Penguins for a year.
"The Penguins had drafted Mark Johnson sight-unseen, and they asked me to go over and look at him," said MacDonald. "... That's when Bob and I met."
When he made the scouting visit to the Dane County Coliseum, MacDonald found himself seated in a sea of red-clad fans who stood and cheered wildly throughout the game. Finally, a fan asked MacDonald what he was doing sitting there not dressed in red and bogged down with play charts.
"I explained that I was scouting for the Pittsburgh Penguins and that we owned Mark Johnson," MacDonald said. "I'll never forget it -- the fan's comment was, 'Gee, do you think the Penguins would be able to play against the Badgers?'
"Bob had made the program so strong that people thought it was the premier program in all of hockey. I realized then what Bob had done. He had turned it into a giant.
"He made the Badgers so strong it took the rest of his life to make the Penguins strong enough to beat them."
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