Of course, I learned a lot of new things. But working with him wasn’t easy and I’m not the only one who says that. It was complicated. He didn’t like the silence, he wanted that was always something that forced us to be on our toes.

I can’t say that no one loved him, but we didn’t feel many positive emotions. Within the team there was a huge concurrency. Everyone wanted to play. And we had such a great team for many straight years.

But at the end of my career I really didn’t expect to see such a different person. When he retired as a coach, he came to Detroit, to our locker room. And talking with him has been awesome. No one expected that he could be such a person. He surprised us all. It appeared that under his gross and sometimes inappropriate actions, phrases, words was hiding a kind, gentle, good-hearted man, a mentor with a capital letter.

-Sergei Fedorov on Scotty Bowman.

Fedorov did a recent interview on Russian radio and Alessandro Seren Rosso of The Hockey Writers has the full translation.