Burns Out

Pat Burns, former holder of one of the best mustaches in the NHL, has died after collecting a very unwelcome hat trick, with lung cancer following previous bouts of colon and liver cancer at the age of 58. A former junior hockey player, Burns was a detective sergeant in Gatineau, Quebec with 16 years on the force when Wayne Gretzky told him he should be a coach for a junior hockey team he owned. In Canada, when The Great One tells you to be a coach, you coach. He quickly made the NHL and raised the hopes of 3 of the Original 6 with his tough tactics earning him the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year three times, as he took the Canadiens, Bruins and Maple Leafs to the playoffs, even pulling off the miracle of getting the Maple Leafs within a game of the 1993 Stanley Cup Finals, before his teams tired of his rage-filled tirades shy of the prize. Then came 2003 when he took a New Jersey Devils franchise that had only won the Stanley Cup twice in the previous 8 seasons to an NHL championship in his first season with the team. Then got fired after an upset in the first round the following year. In all, his career record was 501-353-151, and his teams missed the playoffs only twice in 14 seasons.