Say What You Want About Him As A Coach, But Gordon Bombay Was A Helluva GM
The legacies of men tend to change over time. It’s only natural. There was once a time when Gordon Bombay was universally regarded as one of the best hockey coaches there ever was. Since then, there has been a chasm between hockey historians as to how much credit Bombay actually deserves for his teams’ success. You may remember a few years ago that played out right here on this very website as Chief wrote an article calling Gordon Bombay the most overrated coach in sports history. I quickly refuted that claim and told anybody who doesn’t respect Bombay’s legendary status to get out of America. But as you can see, different people can have very differing opinions on Gordon Bombay the coach.
Did Bombay sometimes sleep with his players’ moms? Did Bombay sometimes try to bang the rival team’s trainers? Was Gordon Bombay a drunk? The answer to all of those questions is “yes”. But we’re not here arguing about Gordon Bombay the man. I think we can all agree that as a human being, Bombay had some pretty shitty tendencies. It’s winning that defines your success as a coach and Bombay won at every level he was behind the bench for. That’s neither here nor there, however, because I’m not even talking about Gordon Bombay the coach today. No no no. What I’m here to talk about is Gordon Bombay the general manager, and why his role as a GM may have been his best.
While coaching the District 5 Ducks, Bombay knew that the original roster he had wasn’t a championship-caliber roster. He knew his team was not good enough defensively to make up for their lack of elite level offensive talent. So what did he do? He went out there and acquired Adam Banks. Just the best player in the entire league. In one swift managerial move, Bombay instantly made his own team stronger while weakening a rival opponent. Without Banks, the Hawks go on to win their 40th straight title. But with Banks on the Ducks? The team was unstoppable.
And while the Banks acquisition was clearly the biggest move of the year, that wasn’t the only move Bombay made at the Ducks GM. He was also solely responsible for the team acquiring stud defenseman Fulton Reed.
Fulton was another game changer for this team who seemed destined to finish the season in the basement of the league before Bombay took over. He knew the team’s defense lacked any kind of bite. They were a soft group and easy to play against. Bringing in Fulton solely for intimidation purposes alone would have been a great signing by Bombay. Fulton Reed was the kind of enforcer who made other enforcers beg for mercy. But then the kid also came to the team with that shot. And sure, it may have only hit the net every 1 out of 5 shots. But just seeing the kid rip clappies during warmups was enough for teams to shit their pants any time he wound up to blast one off from the point, opening up plenty of space for the rest of the guys in the offensive zone. Without Banks and Fulton, the District 5 Ducks don’t win a championship that year. But Gordon Bombay was able to take this team who was at the bottom of the league and transform them into champions in just one season with a couple of really good, really smart moves.
Then we get to the 1994 Junior Goodwill Games. A lot of people are going to give Bombay shit for losing himself during this time and getting too caught up in being the most famous youth hockey coach in the world. But we all need to remind ourselves of something here–everybody on the 1980 US Olympic Hockey Team hated Herb Brooks at the time. And Herb did that purposely to give the team a common enemy to rally around. Think about it. Team USA sponsored by Hendrix had such a wide variety of characters coming together. You had the core of the District 5 Ducks. You had a kid who didn’t know how to stop from Miami. You had a kid who just broke out of juvi wearing a sleeveless hockey jersey. You had a figure skater. You had a cowboy. You had a chick goalie. The only way this team was going to gel and work together is if they had a common enemy to rally around. That enemy, of course, was Bombay. Is that a coaching decision more than a GM decision? Possibly. I like to think it’s a little bit of both. But where his general managing prowess really comes into play is when he signed Russ Tyler to the team after Charlie’s recommendation.
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Signing Russ Tyler was a huuuuuuuge risk. This was a kid who nobody had ever heard of before. Just some kid who was playing street hockey in East LA. Nobody knew if he’d ever been on the ice before. But Bombay trusted Charlie and he trusted his gut instinct. A lot of general managers would see the risk in signing Russ Tyler and immediately write it off. They’d have their analytics nerds telling them that it’s not worth it and they’d move on. But not Bombay. He listened to his heart, added Russ Tyler to the roster and what do you know? Team USA ends up winning gold at the Junior Goodwill Games with Russ Tyler scoring a huge goal in the 3rd period of the gold medal game.
And finally, this brings us to D3. Which might have been Bombay’s masterpiece. While he may not have been directly involved with the team on a day-to-day basis, Bombay’s fingerprints were all over that win against the Varsity team. Let’s just go through a quick checklist of everything he did for the Eden Hall JV Team.
- - He deserves all the credit for getting Charlie Conway to re-sign with the team after walking out on them earlier in the movie. Without Bombay showing him that Coach Orion was actually a decent guy, then Conway goes the rest of the year without hockey and probably looks to transfer the next year. Not only does Bombay get him to re-sign, but he also took a hometown discount.
- - At the last minute, Bombay was also able to get Eden Hall to reinstate the teams’ scholarships when it looked like they were going to get kicked out of school. Without this move, the game doesn’t even get played. But Bombay put the coaching whistle away, threw on a suit and general managed his dick off to keep the boys in school.
- - In the process, he was also able to reach a settlement to bring Dean Portman back to the lineup to add some more grit to the roster. Without Portman, this team getting bullied by the Varsity. But once the Bash Brothers are back together? Well we all know what happens from there.
- - And then finally, here’s something that I don’t think a lot of people give Bombay credit for. Not only did he know how to manage a hockey team, but Gordon Bombay also knew how to manage the current social climate. This is put on display when Bombay is able to get the school to change their mascot from the Eden Hall Warriors to the Eden Hall Ducks.
What makes this move so special? Well Gordon Bombay was a proactive manager instead of being a reactive one. He way ahead of his time. And instead of waiting for the day to come when a bunch of snowflakes on Twitter start to bitch about the Eden Hall Warriors mascot being racist, he decided to get out ahead of this one and change it to the Ducks before it even became an issue. The man was a genius, a visionary, and one of the best general managers we’ll ever come across in all of sports.