Al Arbour wasn't the coach that opponents and fans always saw -- the genius with the frozen glare and the drab suits that ran the gamut from blue to dark blue. He was an innovator and a visionary, and no one ever handled the competing personalities of a star-studded team better. He was a great coach and an even better man.
He pioneered the use of videotape -- don't let anyone tell you differently -- viewing the flickering images in a darkened room of his sprawling home in Cold Spring Harbor that his devoted wife, Claire, called "the dungeon.