Mike Bossy

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Position	Right Wing
Shot	Right
Nickname(s)	"Boss," "La Machine"
Height Weight	6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) 185 lb (84 kg/13 st 3 lb)
Pro clubs	New York Islanders
Nationality	Canada
Born	January 22, 1957 (1957-01-22) (age 51), Montreal, QC, CAN
NHL Draft	15th overall, 1977 New York Islanders
Pro career	1977 – 1987
Hall of Fame, 1991

Michael Dean "Mike" Bossy (born January 22, 1957 in Montreal, Quebec) is a former Canadian ice hockey player who played for the New York Islanders during their four-year reign as Stanley Cup champions in the early 1980s. He was renowned for his rapid, powerful, and accurate shot, his consistency in scoring goals, and his sportsmanlike play. Bossy was perennially among the league's goal scoring leaders during his career, and although his career was cut short by injuries, he is still considered one of the greatest natural goal scorers and snipers in the history of the game.

[edit] Playing career

He started his junior career with Quebec Major Junior Hockey League at the age of 16 with Laval National. Despite scoring 309 goals in four seasons, Bossy was considered a timid, one-dimensional scoring forward by NHL scouts. In the 1977 NHL Amateur Draft, he was passed over by twelve teams before the New York Islanders made Bossy their first round draft selection at 15th overall.

General manager Bill Torrey was torn at first between taking Bossy and another forward, Dwight Foster from the Ontario Hockey League. Bossy was known as a scorer who couldn't check, while Foster could check but couldn't score. Islanders coach Al Arbour said that he could teach a scorer to check and advocated picking Bossy. Bossy was placed on a line with Bryan Trottier and Clark Gillies.

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. Bossy won the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year and was named a Second Team All-Star.

In 1980–81, he 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. Bossy succeeded in reaching this mark despite publicly putting media pressure on himself to do so.

In the 1982 Stanley Cup finals against the Vancouver Canucks, Bossy was up-ended by a check from Tiger Williams and tumbling in the air, parallel to the ice, when he managed to hook the puck with his stick and score. Bossy was also recognized for his clean play. He believed that fighting should be banned from the game and won the Lady Byng Trophy for gentlemanly play three times, in 1983, 1984, and 1986.

Bossy has harbored some animosity towards Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers, stating that the Islanders got little recognition for their four-year run of Stanley Cups (1980, 1981, 1982, 1983) compared to the Montreal Canadiens dynasty of the late 1970s or the Oilers' run of the mid and late 1980s.

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 all but shut down in the finals. 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 38 goals.

After sitting out the entire 1987–88 season with his back injury, Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall tried to lure him to play with a newly-acquired Wayne Gretzky in 1988. However, Bossy retired instead. He worked as a television broadcaster for the Quebec Nordiques until 1990 and was a member of the CKOI's morning crew in the mid-1990s.

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

On October 13th, 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. [1]

[edit] Accomplishments

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (January 2007)

Bossy and Wayne Gretzky are the only players to have scored 50 or more goals for nine seasons. Bossy also had nine consecutive 50 goal seasons, a feat unmatched even today. 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 markedly 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. However, Selänne was four years older than Bossy had been at the time he set the rookie record.

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 Jaromir Jagr 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.

Bossy earned 5 First Team All-Star selections, one of only four right wings ever to do so.

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.

In 2007, Bossy was inducted into the Nassau County Sports Hall of Fame.

Bossy is also the fastest player to reach 100 goals, based on the number of games played.

[edit] Post-hockey career

Bossy was co-host to a French-language humor radio show called "Les Midis Fous" (Crazy Noons) airing on Montreal station CKOI 96,9 FM in the early 1990s. He would often make reference to his past as hockey player, most notably his records ("Nine seasons of 50 goals; 4 Stanley Cups"), but also sometimes of his back injuries. Being in charge, among other things, of the weather report during that daily show, he would normally pick someone from the audience to deliver the report in his place. At the time of the show, Bossy was living in Rosemère with his wife and then-teenage daughters.

[edit] Career statistics

[edit] 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

[edit] External links

• Mike Bossy's biography at Legends of Hockey
• SI Where Are They Now? - Mike Bossy
• Mike Bossy's career stats at The Internet Hockey Database