The Columbus Dispatch has a great piece up today on the friendship between Blue Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock and former Habs/Leafs/Bruins/Devils coach Pat Burns, who is in the final rounds of his battle with cancer.

There isn't quite the larger-than-life mythologizing around NHL coaches the way there is around NFL head coaches or MLB managers, but both Hitch and Burns (who came up through the ranks at the same time and whose careers mirrored each other in many ways) are pretty much the archetype of the hard-nosed, no-nonsense bench boss, an archetype that  seems to be fading away in favor of relatively gormless, anonymous systems guys (seriously... unless you're an old Nordiques fan, could you pick Claude Julien out of a lineup?)

Hopefully Burns will hang on long enough to see himself inducted into the Hall of Fame.