Dynasties have become fleeting in professional sports in recent years. Blame it on free agency, expansion or just too many good teams, but the age of the multi-year championships seems to have ended.
So Al Arbour, the Hall of Fame defenseman and coach knows a little thing about dynasties, having coached the New York Islanders to four straight Stanley Cup championships and five-straight appearances in the Finals during the 1980s.
That Islanders team was a paragon of stability, as players like goalie Bill Smith, defensemen Denis Potvin and Stefan Persson and forwards Bryan Trottier, Mike Bossy, Clark Gillies and John Tonelli all were integral parts of all four title teams.
"We had a group of character players, character people," Arbour recalled. "They cared very much about each other and were very professional about how they approached the game. They would show up to the rink, go to the dressing room and prepare themselves. Once they got on the ice, they would help each other out, make sacrifices for each other, and nobody wanted to let the other guy down. I think that was the secret right there."
But the team didn't coach itself. While that group of Islanders certainly qualified as "old pros," they still needed the guiding hand of a coach like Arbour, who knew when to crack the whip and when to step off the gas.
"You have to have guidelines and our discipline was very important," Arbour recalled. "Our team was a very disciplined team. We played discipline hockey, we could play a finesse game or we could play a very physical type of hockey. Whatever the opposition wanted, we could play it like that. A lot of the times we dictated how the game was going to be played.
"You have to have that kind of players and I was very fortunate to have that."
Like many multiple-Cup winners, Arbour recalls his first with the Islanders as the most cherished.
"I think the first Cup," Arbour said. "Until you win the first one, we had lost for two years in a row and had a relatively young team and once they would get in the playoffs they would tighten up a bit. We got beat by the Rangers and Toronto the two previous years and were known as a bunch of chokers, a team that couldn't win the big ones.
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Al Arbour will always be remembered in Islanders' lore for the fantastic years in the early 80s when the team he coached was nearly unbeatable.
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"That first Cup we got over the hump," Arbour continued. "When Bobby
Nystrom scored that overtime goal for the first Stanley Cup that was really
the beginning of something good. That to me, was the most important one."
The Isles certainy weren't a one-man management gang in those days. Arbour coached the team and Bill Torrey, the general manager, got the right mix of players, like center Butch Goring and defenseman Mike McEwen to augment the runs for the Cup.
"I was very happy to see his banner put up [by the Islanders organization this season]. I was there for the occasion," Arbour said. "It was just great to see the bow tie, and 'The Architect' on the banner. We had a great working relationship. We worked very well together. Our thinking was the same and both of us knew what we needed and the type of players we wanted.
"Bill had great patience, a heck of a lot more patience than I did. We stood by our ground. We waited and it didn't take us very long to start winning. Once we started winning, we just kept getting some odd players. That first Cup we got Butch Goring. We needed an experienced guy to settle things down in the dressing room. He was just the perfect guy for that."
Just as Arbour was the perfect coach for what many feel was a perfect team.
