Mike Bossy

Mike Bossy
Hockey Hall of Fame, 1991
Born	(1957-01-22) January 22, 1957 Montreal, Quebec
Height	6 ft 0 in (183 cm)
Weight	185 lb (84 kg; 13 st 3 lb)
Position	Forward
Played for	New York Islanders
NHL draft	Round 1, 1st Overall, 1977 New York Islanders
Playing career	1977–1987

Michael Dean "Boom Boom" Bossy (born January 22, 1957) in Montreal, Quebec) is a former Canadian ice hockey player who played for the New York Islanders for his entire career and was part of their four-year reign as Stanley Cup champions in the early 1980s. Known for his powerful shot, he was among the league's goal scoring leaders and considered one of the greatest bona-fide snipers of the game. His career was cut short by injuries.

Playing career

He started his junior career with Quebec Major Junior Hockey League at the age of 14. Despite scoring 309 goals in four seasons, Bossy was considered a timid player by NHL scouts. In the 1977 NHL Amateur Draft, he was passed over by twelve teams, with the New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs ignoring him twice. However, the New York Islanders made him their first choice, 1st overall.

General manager Bill Torrey was torn at first between taking Bossy and another forward. Bossy was known as a scorer who couldn't check, while the other forward could check but wasn't very good offensively. Coach Al Arbour persuaded Torrey to pick Bossy, figuring it was easier to teach a scorer how to check. Bossy was placed on a line with Bryan Trottier and Clark Gillies, known as The Trio Grande.

Bossy boldly predicted that he would score 50 goals in his rookie season. He made good on his promise, scoring a then-record 53 goals as a rookie in the 1977-78 season, won the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year, and was named a Second Team All-Star.

In 1980-81, Bossy scored 50 goals in the first 50 games of the season, the first to do so since the great Maurice Richard thirty-six years earlier. Richard was on hand to congratulate Bossy for achieving that milestone.

Bossy was known for being able to score goals in remarkable fashion, the most incredible, perhaps, in the 1982 Stanley Cup Finals against the Vancouver Canucks when, up-ended by a check from Tiger Williams and flying several feet in the air, parallel to the ice, Bossy nonetheless managed to hook the puck with his stick and score. Bossy was also noted for his clean play, never resorting to fighting (and being one of the first players to speak out against violence on the ice), and winning the Lady Byng Trophy for gentlemanly play three times: 1983, 1984, and 1986.

Bossy has harbored some animosity towards Gretzky and the Oilers, stating that the Islanders got little recognition for their dynasty (1980-1983) compared to the Montreal Canadiens (1976-1979) or Edmonton Oilers (1984-1990). Bossy complained "I do a lot of promoting for how good [the Islanders] were...We never got one millionth of the recognition we should. We had a very low-key organization. They didn't want guys doing too much, because they thought the hockey might suffer. People don't talk about us in the first mention of great teams."

The dominant scoring star of the late 1970s was Guy Lafleur but his skills waned in the 1980s. In 1982, Bossy set a scoring record for right-wingers with 147 points while also winning the Stanley Cup and the Conn Smythe Trophy. However, far more attention was given to Gretzky who not only won the Hart Trophy and Art Ross Trophy, but also shattered scoring records with an unheard of 212 points and 92 goals. Bossy aspired to be the best player of his era but fell short, as the Hart and Art Ross Trophies were two of the awards that eluded Bossy during his career, going to LaFleur, Trottier, and Gretzky. Although the Islanders swept the Oilers in the 1983 final to win a fourth consecutive championship, Gretzky and his Oilers still received the most attention. During Gretzky's interview with the New York Post in 1993, he praised Bossy as the best right-winger ever to play, saying that their scoring totals would have been even higher if the two had played together. Bossy's response in the Post was not complimentary, as he pointed out that their playing styles were different, and also said that Trottier was the best. Gretzky afterwards could not be reached for comment.

The Islanders made a fifth consecutive Stanley Cup final in 1984 but they were outmatched by the Oilers who defeated them 4 games to 1. Bossy, who had scored 8 goals after the first three rounds of the playoffs (and 17 goals in the past three consecutive post-seasons), was silenced completely in the finals series. Afterwards, the Islanders would slowly decline, while injuries would take their toll on Bossy's back. He was limited to 63 games in the 1986-87 season but he still managed to score 38 goals.

Career After Hockey

Bossy retired in 1987 at the age of 30 and worked as a television broadcaster for the Quebec Nordiques until 1990. He afterwards recalled not being able to get a job with an NHL organization since then, saying "I contacted the Canadiens at least two or three times [in the mid-1990s] because I thought I could help the organization in some way, not necessarily as a coach but in some role that could be developed. They never called back". Bossy also had hopes when former teammate Bryan Trottier was hired as New York Rangers coach in 2002, saying "I also thought I'd get a call. The reason was, I remember having umpteen conversations with Bryan, having roomed with him for 10 years, that went, 'One of these days, Mike, we're going to take a team and do it our way.' I've found out since from Bryan [who was fired in his first season] that he wasn't going to be given that chance."

Bossy then did a three-year stint as part of the morning zoo crew on CKOI, a French-language radio station in Montreal. He started out doing promotional work for Humpty Dumpty in the late 1990s, a snack-food manufacturer based in eastern Canada. He became the Quebec sales director of the company in 2003.

In 2005, Bossy made a cameo appearance on the fourth sequel to the French Canadian classic movie Les Boys, playing himself.

On October 13, 2006, the Islanders held a news conference to announce that Bossy had rejoined the organization, working with the front office in sponsor and fan development. [5]

Accomplishments

Bossy holds the current NHL record for most consecutive 50+ goal seasons with nine.

Bossy and Wayne Gretzky are the only players to have scored 50 or more goals for nine seasons. Additionally, both are the only players ever to have scored 60 or more goals in as many as five seasons. Unlike Gretzky, however, who played 20 seasons, Bossy was healthy enough only for 10, of which only the first nine were full.

As he never played long enough for his skills to diminish, his scoring averages remain quite high. Bossy averaged .762 goals per game in the regular season, more than any other player in NHL history, and .659 in the playoffs, second only to Mario Lemieux at .710.

In 1977-78, his rookie season, he scored 53 goals which established a rookie record. This was broken in 1992-93 by Teemu Selänne's 76 goals.

In 1980-81, he scored 50 goals in the first 50 games of the season. He also recorded nine hat tricks that season, establishing an NHL-record (later broken by Gretzky in 1981-1982 with 10. Gretzky tied his own record with 10 hat tricks again in 1983-1984).

In 1982, Bossy set scoring records for right-wingers with 83 assists and 147 points in 80 games. These would stand until the 1995-96 season when Jaromír Jágr broke both records with 87 assists and 149 points, in what was an 82-game schedule.

Bossy earned the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 1982, and scored 17 goals in three straight playoffs -- 1981, 1982, and 1983 -- the only player ever to do so. In reaching the Stanley Cup Finals five times, between 1980 and 1984, Bossy scored 69 goals. By contrast, in Gretzky's five Stanley Cup Finals playoffs during his peak years with the Edmonton Oilers, he scored 59 goals.

Bossy earned 5 First Team All-Star selections, one of only four right wings ever to do so, again a notable achievement considering that the other three had much longer careers (Gordie Howe - 26 years; Maurice Richard - 18 years; Guy Lafleur - 17 years).

He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1991. His #22 jersey was retired by the Islanders on March 3, 1992. In 1998, he was ranked number 20 on The Hockey News' list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players, despite having an injury-shortened career.

Career statistics

				Regular Season						Playoffs
Season	Team	League		GP	G	A	Pts	PIM		GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
1972-73	Laval National	QMJHL		4	1	2	3	0		--	--	--	--	--
1973-74	Laval National	QMJHL		68	70	48	118	45		11	6	16	22	2
1974-75	Laval National	QMJHL		67	84	65	149	42		16	18	20	38	2
1975-76	Laval National	QMJHL		64	79	57	136	25		--	--	--	--	--
1976-77	Laval National	QMJHL		61	75	51	126	12		7	5	5	10	12
1977-78	New York Islanders	NHL		73	53	38	91	6		7	2	2	4	2
1978-79	New York Islanders	NHL		80	69	57	126	25		10	6	2	8	2
1979-80	New York Islanders*	NHL		75	51	41	92	12		16	10	13	23	8
1980-81	New York Islanders*	NHL		79	68	51	119	32		18	17	18	35	4
1981-82	New York Islanders*	NHL		80	64	83	147	22		19	17	10	27	0
1982-83	New York Islanders*	NHL		79	60	58	118	20		19	17	9	26	10
1983-84	New York Islanders	NHL		67	51	67	118	8		21	8	10	18	4
1984-85	New York Islanders	NHL		76	58	59	117	38		10	5	6	11	4
1985-86	New York Islanders	NHL		80	61	62	123	14		3	1	2	3	4
1986-87	New York Islanders	NHL		63	38	37	75	33		6	2	3	5	2
NHL Totals				752	573	553	1126	210		129	85	75	160	38

• *Stanley Cup Champion

See also

• Hockey Hall of Fame
• List of NHL players with 500 goals
• List of NHL players with 1000 points
• List of NHL seasons
• List of NHL statistical leaders
• List of retired NHL players

External links

• SI Where Are They Now? - Mike Bossy