Book excerpt: Bench Bosses celebrates the greatest NHL Coaches in the history of the game. Bench Bosses is filled with compelling biographical narrative, innovative analysis, historical allusion, hockey folklore, humour, heartbreak, and tragedy. By introducing a creative new method for evaluating coaching success, professional historian and hockey columnist Matthew DiBiase settles many a debate. His hard-hitting prose and cogent analysis covers key aspects of coaching and definitively identifies the greatest offensive and defensive coaches, expounds on the best penalty-killing or power-play coaches and delves into statistics to determine the nastiest squads on the ice. His unique assessment method determines his selection of the top fifty head coaches of all time. DiBiase's in-depth hockey research delivers a powerful, gripping and informative look at the game's best of the best. This seminal book tells the story behind the story of coaching success. It removes subjectivity and bias and provides a comprehensive overview of each coach's major career achievements and the contributions each has made to the game. In the writing of this book, the author personally interviewed many of the game's best known coaches and their players to get the most accurate and complete perspective of the sport and its coaching elite. Readers will enjoy hearing from such names as Scotty Bowman, Al Arbour, Jean Beliveau, Dick Irving Jr., and more.