Robert Jesse Pulford (born March 31, 1936) is a
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
former professional
ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...
forward who played for the
Toronto Maple Leafs
The Toronto Maple Leafs (officially the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club and often referred to as the Leafs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Div ...
and
Los Angeles Kings
The Los Angeles Kings are a professional ice hockey team based in Los Angeles. The team competes in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference and was founded on June 5, 1967, after Jack Kent ...
in the
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
. He later served as head coach of the Kings before spending 30 years with the
Chicago Blackhawks
The Chicago Blackhawks (spelled Black Hawks until 1986, and known colloquially as the Hawks) are a professional ice hockey team based in Chicago. The Blackhawks compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division i ...
as a coach and general manager.
Early life
Pulford and his family lived on King St. in
Weston
Weston may refer to:
Places Australia
* Weston, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb of Canberra
* Weston, New South Wales
* Weston Creek, a residential district of Canberra
* Weston Park, Canberra, a park
Canada
* Weston, Nova Scotia
* ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
from 1940 to 1950, and he attended Memorial School prior to the family move to rural Ontario.
Pulford played junior hockey in Weston, then senior hockey for the Marlboros.
Playing career
Pulford played junior hockey for the
Toronto Marlboros
The Toronto Marlborough Athletic Club, commonly known as the Toronto Marlboros, was founded in 1903. It operated junior ice hockey and senior ice hockey teams in the Ontario Hockey Association and later the Ontario Hockey League. The Marlboros ...
for three seasons from 1953 to 1956, winning two
Memorial Cup
The Memorial Cup () is the national championship of the Canadian Hockey League, a consortium of three major junior ice hockey leagues operating in Canada and parts of the United States. It is a four-team round-robin tournament played between t ...
s under coach
Turk Broda
Walter Edward "Turk" Broda (May 15, 1914 — October 17, 1972) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player and coach. A goaltender, Broda played his entire career for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League (NHL) between 1935 and 19 ...
. He moved up to the Maple Leafs for the 1956–57 season and remained with the team for 14 seasons wearing jersey number 20. Pulford was an important member of the Leaf teams that won four
Stanley Cups in 1962–1964 and 1967.
With the series tied 1–1, Pulford scored the overtime game winner in game 3 of the
1967 Stanley Cup Finals against the
Montreal Canadiens
The Montreal CanadiensEven in English, the French spelling is always used instead of ''Canadians''. The French spelling of ''Montréal'' is also sometimes used in the English media. (french: link=no, Les Canadiens de Montréal), officially ...
. The Montreal goalie was
Rogie Vachon
Rogatien Rosaire "Rogie" Vachon (born September 8, 1945) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey goaltender who played for the Montreal Canadiens, Los Angeles Kings, Detroit Red Wings and Boston Bruins in the National Hockey League.
Montre ...
. Pulford later coached Vachon in Los Angeles as the Kings rose to prominence in the mid-1970s.
The Leafs traded him to the Los Angeles Kings on September 3, 1970, where he played two seasons and retired as a player in 1972.
In 1967 Pulford was elected the first president of the
National Hockey League Players' Association
NHLPA (french: AJLNH) is the labour union for the group of professional hockey players who are under Standard Player Contracts to the 32 member clubs in the National Hockey League (NHL) located in the United States and Canada. The association re ...
.
Coaching career
Immediately after retiring as a player, Pulford became head coach of the Kings for the 1972–73 season and led the team for five years before becoming coach and general manager of the Chicago Blackhawks in 1977. As coach of the Kings, he helped Los Angeles go from being one of the worst defensive and penalty killing teams in the NHL to one of the best. He guided the Kings to their first playoff appearance in five years in 1974, and won the
Jack Adams Award as coach of the year in the NHL in 1975. That season, the Kings amassed 105 points, still a club record through 2013. He also led the Kings to their first playoff series wins since 1969 when they defeated the Atlanta Flames in the first round of both the 1976 and 1977 NHL playoffs. Pulford left the Kings after the 1976–77 season after constant feuding with then owner
Jack Kent Cooke
Jack Kent Cooke (October 25, 1912 – April 6, 1997) was a Canadian-American businessman in broadcasting and professional sports. Starting in sales, Cooke was very successful, eventually becoming a partner in a network of radio stations and news ...
. Pulford wanted to become General Manager as well as coach, or at least have a bigger role in player personnel decisions. Cooke however, often meddled in player personnel matters, and in the mid-1970s, reverted to his old habits of trading promising young players and draft picks for veteran, past their prime former stars.
He served as coach for the Blackhawks on three separate occasions from 1977 to 1987. He was promoted to senior vice president in 1990, but took on the general manager's duties again from 1992 to 1997, from 1999 to 2000, and from 2003 to 2005. During his third stint as general manager, Pulford nominally doubled as head coach, demoting
Lorne Molleken
Lorne Molleken (born June 11, 1956) is a Canadian former ice hockey goaltender and coach. Molleken was head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks at the end of the 1999 and the beginning of the 2000 season. He was nominally demoted to an assistant ...
to an assistant. However, Molleken remained the team's main operator on the bench, with Pulford as more or less a senior consultant.
In seven seasons and 426 games as Hawks coach over three stints, Pulford won 182, lost 176, and tied 68. At the time he left the bench for good, only
Billy Reay had won more regular season games for the Hawks. Pulford is now third, behind Reay and
Joel Quenneville
Joel Norman Quenneville (born September 15, 1958) is a Canadian–American ice hockey coach and former player in the National Hockey League (NHL). Nicknamed "Coach Q", he is second in NHL coaching wins at 969 behind Scotty Bowman. Quenneville ac ...
for most regular season games won as Hawk coach.
He won the
Jack Adams Award for best coach in the NHL in 1975. Pulford was also honoured to be named head coach of Team USA during the
1976 Canada Cup
The 1976 Canada Cup was an international ice hockey tournament held September 2 to 15, 1976, in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg and Quebec City in Canada as well as in Philadelphia, in the United States. It was the first of five Canada Cup to ...
tournament.
He was inducted into the
Hockey Hall of Fame in 1991.
On October 11, 2007, Pulford was named an officer with the
Wirtz Corporation
Wirtz Corporation is an American holding company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It was founded in 1926 by Arthur Wirtz as a family-owned corporation to oversee his real estate holdings. The company shortly thereafter expanded into liquor dist ...
, parent company of the Blackhawks, and is no longer part of the day-to-day management of the Blackhawks.
His son-in-law is
Dean Lombardi
Dean Lombardi (born March 5, 1958) is an American ice hockey executive with the Philadelphia Flyers. He most recently served as the president, general manager and alternate governor of the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL). He ...
, a former assistant general manager for the Minnesota North Stars, GM of the San Jose Sharks, and president and general manager of the Los Angeles Kings. He is currently a senior advisor in the Philadelphia Flyers organization.
In 2012, Pulford was honoured by the Kings in a pregame ceremony; the team wore their purple and gold 1970s throwback uniforms in the game following this ceremony.
Career statistics
* Stanley Cup Champion.
Coaching record
See also
*
List of NHL players with 1000 games played
The National Hockey League (NHL) is a major professional ice hockey league which operates in Canada and the United States. Since its inception in , 357 players have played at least 1,000 regular season games, varying in amounts between Patrick ...
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pulford, Bob
1936 births
Chicago Blackhawks coaches
Chicago Blackhawks executives
Hockey Hall of Fame inductees
Ice hockey people from Ontario
Jack Adams Award winners
Lester Patrick Trophy recipients
Living people
Los Angeles Kings coaches
Los Angeles Kings players
Memorial Cup winners
Sportspeople from Simcoe County
Stanley Cup champions
Toronto Maple Leafs players
Toronto Marlboros players
Canadian ice hockey left wingers
Canadian ice hockey coaches