Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

Coach Fred Shero Changed The Game

11/07/2013 at 3:22pm EST

from the CP at The Hockey News,

With 22 black-and-white pages, Fred Shero changed hockey.

Before Shero coached the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1970s, NHL teams didn't do much in the way of systems. His playbook and standard for fundamentally sound hockey, more so than hitting or fighting, won the Broad Street Bullies two Stanley Cups.

"Freddy revolutionized the game," said former defenceman Joe Watson, who played seven years under Shero. "We never had assistant coaches till he came in. We never talked about a system until he came in. We never had practices the day of the game, we'd come to the rink but very seldom ever went out on the ice. Freddy brought this to the forefront."

Shero, who will be posthumously inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame Monday, set the tone for his teams with a playbook that led off with "Fundamental Rules." Watson remembered when the Flyers had 10 rules to follow, but by the 1975-76 season, the list grew to 16.

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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