ESPN Head coach: Jim Montgomery says Goodbye as he confirms that this will be his last season at Boston Bruins as he is now going to….
After the Boston Bruins eliminated the Toronto Maple Leafs from the Stanley Cup playoffs a few weeks ago, Bruins coach Jim Montgomery, addressing reporters in the postgame news conference, credited an unexpected figure.
“I had a real good discussion with Mike Babcock before Game 6 about owning the moment and how to push your team through,” the Bruins coach said after his team’s Game 7 overtime win.
Babcock, 61, coached parts of 18 seasons in the NHL and led three teams to Stanley Cup Finals, winning in 2008 with the Detroit Red Wings. But he has spent most of the past four years in a hockey exile following allegations of bullying and mistreating players. Babcock briefly returned to the NHL last July, hired as the head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets, but he resigned in September before coaching a single game after reportedly pressuring players to share private photos during one-on-one meetings.
For years, Babcock’s behavior was notorious in NHL locker rooms, and some players attempted to draw attention to it. But he has long been well-connected and respected amongst the game’s power brokers, and his winning reputation shielded him from serious scrutiny.
“He got away with a lot of stuff in an era where nobody really brought light to any of the stuff that he did,” said a former player under Babcock in Detroit.
