Bowman fondly remembers first time East played West at 1969 All-Star Game

MONTREAL -- It was played a half-century and thousands of games ago, so you'd cut Scotty Bowman some slack if he had only sketchy memories of it. But leave it to the man referred to by a former player as "The Computer" to have frighteningly sharp recall of the NHL's historic 1969 All-Star Game, the first time the established East Division faced representatives of six expansion teams in the West.

"I can remember this like it was yesterday," Bowman began, in recent conversation leading to 2019 Honda NHL All-Star Weekend. "Bobby Orr rushed the puck down the right side for the East midway through the third period, and Doug Harvey, playing defense for my West team, took a penalty for tripping."

Bobby Orr (left) and Doug Harvey, two of the greatest defensemen in NHL history, were showcased in 1969
Bowman was nowhere near a database nor a reference book as he spoke. This recollection of the 50th anniversary of the NHL's 22nd All-Star Game, played Jan. 21, 1969 at the Montreal Forum, was strictly from memory. So you looked it up and there it was: Harvey, then a member of Bowman's St. Louis Blues, was whistled by referee John Ashley for tripping at 11:55 of the third period.
"And Claude Larose, who played junior for me with Peterborough (1959-61) during my first full-time coaching job, scored the tying goal for us late in the period," Bowman continued.
At 17:07, the game summary agrees, on East goalie Eddie Giacomin of the New York Rangers, Larose then a member of the Minnesota North Stars.

Claude Larose had played junior hockey for Bowman in Peterborough, Ontario
Larose's goal gave the underdog West an improbable 3-3 tie, a game pitting 19 players cobbled together from the NHL's six expansion teams against the established stars of the Original Six East, 11 of 19 on the East roster bound for Hall of Fame election.
Bowman laughed when asked how in blazes could he remember fine details from an exhibition that came less than 100 games into his NHL-record 2,141-game career.
"Maybe because it was my first All-Star Game?" he replied.
That's unlikely, because Bowman just as likely would have offered similar details had you quizzed him about, say, the 437th game along his road to nine Stanley Cup championships as a coach (14 counting his front-office work) and 13 All-Star Game assignments, both NHL records.
The 1969 game was the first in a six-year run pitting the East against the West, Bowman coaching the West in 1969, 1970, 1971 and the East, then with the Canadiens, in 1974. In 1975, the game's format was changed to feature teams from the Wales and Campbell conferences.

Coaches Scotty Bowman of the St. Louis Blues (left) and Harry Sinden of the Boston Bruins faced each other in the 1971 All-Star Game
The 1967 Stanley Cup-champion Toronto Maple Leafs played an all-star team chosen for the 1968 game, one member from each of the six expansion teams on the all-star roster for a game won 4-3 by Toronto. But in 1969, the NHL's two divisions played against each other in a game that was hardly the mismatch many had predicted.
A vote by the NHL Writers' Association selected 12 players from each division as first and second teams, with the remaining seven men per side chosen by the coaches.
Coming out of retirement for one final game with the East was legendary Canadiens coach Toe Blake, who had stepped down after winning the 1968 championship, the eighth of his career, sweeping rookie coach Bowman's Blues in the Stanley Cup Final. Bowman, behind the West bench, studied and idolized Blake while working for the Canadiens as a scout and coach in their farm system.

Legendary coach Toe Blake came out of retirement to lead the East Division all-star team in 1969
With four of his Blues voted on by the writers, Bowman added four more: Harvey, Noel Picard, Jim Roberts and Ab McDonald. While he would use regular lines from St. Louis, Minnesota and Oakland as his units, there was great talk about the dream line Blake would use with Boston's Phil Esposito between Gordie Howe of the Detroit Red Wings, making his 20th of 23 career All-Star Game appearances, and Bobby Hull of Chicago. In the end, they didn't have a point.
Admittedly, Hull, wearing No. 16, was a little under the weather. Lips pursed in a pre-game photo taken with Howe and Canadiens great Jean Beliveau, he was 17 pounds under his usual playing weight, the jaw he'd broken in action clear to see.
Blake chose not to select a third goalie, as had Bowman by adding Bernie Parent of the Philadelphia Flyers to the Blues tandem of Glenn Hall and Jacques Plante; Blake would use Giacomin for the first and third periods, Boston's Gerry Cheevers for the second. Parent would be the only one of five in the game not to yield a goal; he made 10 saves in the second.
"This could be one of the best all-star games yet," Blake predicted two days before the event.

Glenn Hall was one of three goalies used by Bowman for the West team, along with Jacques Plante and Bernie Parent
The veteran coach prophetically dismissed talk of a blowout for his side, pointing to the American Football League's New York Jets, heavy underdogs, having just stunned the National Football League's Baltimore Colts 16-7 in the Super Bowl.
More than bragging rights were on the line; the all-star winners would pocket $500 per man, $250 each going to the losers. With the tie, all went home $375 richer.
The West would lead 1-0 and 2-1, then fall behind 3-2 before Larose tied it late. Six penalties were called in a game that saw the East outshoot the West 37-27, the West even managing to kill a two-man disadvantage midway through the third when minors to Bill White of the Los Angeles Kings and Harvey overlapped by 23 seconds.
Frank Mahovlich of the Red Wings, who scored twice for the East, was selected the game's most valuable player. Bob Nevin of the New York Rangers scored the East's other goal, with Red Berenson and Jim Roberts of St. Louis joining Larose on the West score sheet.

Frank Mahovlich's two goals earned him first-star honors
"The tie was good for hockey and certainly good for our division," Bowman said.
Then, with a tight grin: "But no matter how well we played, they'll say the East stars played poorly."
Bowman heard the criticism of having doubled the Blues contingent with his additions, but he shrugged it off.
"We were a good expansion team, we had had a hang of a year to that point," he said, his Blues again set to win the West title, again to be swept by the Canadiens in the Final. "I said to heck with (the critics), we're going to put our best guys on. I felt a real obligation to that."

Bowman says he expects he'll watch at least part of All-Star Weekend, the 2019 SAP NHL All-Star Skills of special appeal (9 p.m. ET, NBCSN, Sportsnet, CBC, TVAS).
"I had Bobby Hull in 1971 because Chicago was in the West by then," Bowman said. "Bobby scored the winning goal and I think he was the MVP."

Of course he was.

Photos courtesy Hockey Hall of Fame