Hitchcock, Belfour recall favorite memories during their time with Dallas

It's a bit of kismet that Ken Hitchcock and Ed Belfour will be inducted into the Dallas Stars Hall of Fame on the same night. The two butted heads a great deal during their time in Dallas, but eventually found a strong working relationship and remain friends to this day.

It's a tribute to how hard work and understanding help create a winning atmosphere.

"I think we both understood each other," Hitchcock said. "It was a typical goalie-coach relationship at times, but I think there were times when it was more than that."

Belfour said he has many fond memories of his hard-driving coach.

"Hitch really treated me very fair, giving me the time I needed to rest and rehab, because I had a lot of back problems, and that is not easy to deal with. He gave me the time I needed, and I appreciated that," Belfour said. "He also gave me time to be with my kids. They lived in Chicago and when they came down for a visit, Hitch gave me the extra time to spend with the family."

The relationship helped produce some of the best years in Stars history, as Dallas won four division championships, two conference championships and the 1999 Stanley Cup. Belfour finished his Stars career with 160 wins, third best in franchise history, and had the lowest career GAA at 2.19. He had 44 playoff wins, more than twice the next closest goalie, and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2011. Hitchcock is the franchise's all-time leader in coaching wins with 319 and has the most playoff wins at 47. He will enter the Hockey Hall of Fame this year.

"Ed was instrumental in guiding this franchise to a Stanley Cup championship, and his performance in the postseason will never be forgotten. He'll forever be one of the greatest goaltenders to ever suit up for the Stars," said Stars President and CEO Brad Alberts. "Similarly, Ken transformed this franchise when he was brought on as head coach in the mid-90s, and his success behind the bench left an indelible mark on this fanbase and the city of Dallas," added Alberts. "He was able to get the most out of his players, and it resulted in an unforgettable run to the Stanley Cup in 1999."

The two were selected by the Stars' Hall of Fame committee and will join first-year inductees Derian Hatcher and Bob Gainey. Belfour and Hitchcock will be inducted during the Hall of Fame Weekend on Oct. 21-22.

Hitchcock was informed recently of both the Stars Hall of Fame induction and Hockey Hall of Fame induction and said it has been a lot to digest.

"We're guilty of not pausing or reflecting, never looking in our rearview mirror, just always charging forward," said Hitchcock, who now works with the St. Louis Blues. "What's happened in the last month has afforded me time to look around at the people who influenced me and great players I've coached and the friends I've made. It's good to look back."

Many of those people were with him when he was appointed head coach of the Kalamazoo Wings' AHL team in 1993 and when he was called up to take over the Stars in December of 1995. Hitchcock listed people like Gainey, Rick Wilson, Doug Jarvis, Les Jackson, Craig Button and Doug Armstrong as all having helped him adjust.

"There were a lot of people who helped me so that I could keep coaching, so that I could do what I love, and I've really started to take deep stock in that," Hitchcock said. "I'm just so grateful."

He said Gainey was the driving force behind his success.

"It was nerve-wracking, to say the least, and I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have Bob, Rick and Doug there," Hitchcock said. "Without those guys guiding me, I wouldn't have made it. Bob's greatest strength is he can see around corners. He would let me stumble and bumble and then he would say, `Why don't you try it this way.' He let me succeed, he let me fail, he let me grow. Most important, he had my back. That whole organization had my back, because I was taking risks as a coach."

Hitchcock grew up in Edmonton and cut his teeth on the firewagon type of hockey played up there. However, he said during his first half season with the team, those ideas didn't fit in with how the Stars played. He said it took a little while to learn the ways of the hockey practiced by Gainey and assistant coaches Wilson and Jarvis, who each played for the Montréal Canadiens.

"I took a system that I had been using and I placed it in Dallas, and it didn't work. That half year in '96, it didn't work," Hitchcock said. "Then, Doug Jarvis and Rick Wilson spent the summer with me, teaching me the Montréal Canadian way, and we changed everything. That's the same system I've played with now for 20 years. They taught me a different way to play based on personnel. We didn't have the personnel to play the way I wanted to play, and I was the guy who had to adjust."

It turned out to be fortuitous a couple years later when Belfour was a free agent and trying to find a team. After nine seasons in a good Chicago Blackhawks system (and a short stint in San Jose), Belfour was looking for a team who could win, and he said he was very comfortable with the Stars' hard-working system.

"I came from Chicago and our system in Chicago was very similar," Belfour said. "We played hard defensive hockey and gritty hockey, and that was the same in Dallas. They were very similar programs and I fit right in."

In Belfour's five seasons, the Stars finished second, first, third, second and 18th in goals against average. He battled the likes of Patrick Roy, Dominik Hasek and Martin Brodeur in the playoffs.

"Colorado had Patrick, Buffalo had Dominik and we had Eddie, and I honestly felt in my heart that in head-to-head competition that Eddie could outplay them both," Hitchcock said of the 1999 run to the Cup. "I just thought Eddie was a special goalie and a special person and that he was going to give us the best chance to win hockey games. And as good as Eddie was when we won the Cup, he was better the following year."

Hitchcock said that as good as Belfour was in 1999, he was even better in the 2000 playoffs, but the Stars just didn't have enough in other areas.

Belfour went on to play for Toronto and Florida and finished with 484 career wins (fifth all-time), but he said the highlight of his career was playing in Dallas.

"I was there five years and I wish I could have stayed longer, but that's the business of the game," he said. "What a run we had."

Belfour and Hitchcock both said the relationship with the players was fantastic, citing a team that hung out together on the ice, in the dressing room and even outside the game. Just as important, they said, was the relationship with fans. Belfour was a fan favorite who delighted at the cheers of "Eddie's Better" when he twice defeated Roy in the playoffs. He said one of his favorite memories in life involved a moment with the fans after the Stars won the Cup in the early hours of the morning and flew back to Dallas, arriving at sunrise.

"I carry this picture with me on my phone that's one of my favorites," said Belfour, who lives in North Texas and runs Belfour Spirits. "When we got back to Dallas after winning the Stanley Cup, the sun was coming up and we had, I don't know, 1,500, 2,000 fans up against the fence where the plane landed. I came off with the Stanley Cup and I have the picture where I'm holding the Stanley Cup above my head and fans are touching it. What an amazing moment to be able to share that with the fans who were up all night."

Hitchcock too said his relationship with the fans was integral to him. He would often chat up supporters at Starbucks or scan the upper deck to see the people who could only afford the cheaper seats. He was instrumental in spreading the good word of hockey with programs like The Charity Challenge on Ice, and he was a key to educating everyone on this strange new game that had come to Texas just a few years earlier.

"We were at the start of something big and special in Dallas," Hitchcock said. "And look at it now, it's amazing to see what has happened there with the game of hockey. We were all part of that at the beginning and that's something I'm really proud of. Bigger than any awards or accolades, that's the most important part to me."

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.

Mike Heika is a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika.