Roger Neilson was a hockey innovator. While coaching the Peterborough Petes in the Ontario Hockey Association, he once brought his dog, Jacques, to practice to teach his players how to be patient on the forecheck. He would park his pup in front of the net, and no matter how many times Neilson moved to bring the puck out, Jacques didn’t flinch. The lesson was that if his dog could wait for an opponent to make the first move, his players should be able to exercise that type of patience with the puck. During his seven seasons in Peterborough, Neilson also used his innovative approach to exploit weaknesses in the rulebook. During a game against the Toronto Marlboros on September 26, 1968, Neilson replaced his goaltender with defenceman Ron Stackhouse to stop a penalty shot. As soon as the Toronto player crossed the blue line, Stackhouse skated out from his crease and halted his opponent’s progress. It was tactics like this that caught the eye of NHL general managers.
Following a season behind the bench of Toronto’s minor-league affiliate in Dallas, Neilson was plucked by Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard on July 25, 1977, to take over the club’s vacant coaching position. Although he was in Toronto for only two seasons, his impact was far reaching. Over the next two decades, Neilson coached at the NHL level, and his innovative thinking changed the game. He continued to employ inventive tactics on the ice and became a pioneer in using video to scout opposing teams and players, earning him the nickname Captain Video. Beyond his duties as a bench boss, Neilson also inadvertently changed the atmosphere of the playoffs. While coaching for the Canucks, he was ejected from a 1982 post-season game after draping a white towel over a stick to protest the officiating. At the next Vancouver game, thousands of fans showed up with towels, turning Neilson’s sign of surrender into a rallying cry. Since then, “towel power” has caught on elsewhere, and is now a hallmark of the NHL post-season.
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