When it came to hockey, Bob Johnson was the most enthusiastic man I ever met. Regardless of the audience, whether he was talking to a booster-club luncheon or his team at the University of Wisconsin, he lit up every room he entered.

	Bob Johnson carried his notebooks with him from Wisconsin to the NHL.

When it was time to play the game or practice, what I respected the most about him was he was always upbeat. You could never tell if he had the worst week of his life. His enthusiasm came out his pores. His mouth was moving, he was talking hockey, he was pumping people up and selling the game to himself and everyone around him.

At the university, Johnson really was a coach; he didn't just coach for a living. There was nothing else he would have rather done in his life. Johnson was too dynamic to do anything he didn't love to do all the time. I always remember him rubbing his face and his nose and shaking his head, saying, "I'll tell you, it's a great day to play hockey." He would say it everyday, even if he were at a hockey camp on July 14.

Johnson loved the European style of hockey, especially the Russians, long before they started coming to the NHL in such big numbers. Even though we hadn't seen much of the Russians until they began touring North America and playing NHL teams, Johnson had seen them quite a bit because he had coached the U.S. national team in European tournaments.

As a college coach, I remember him saying the NHL game was too slow and deliberate. The Russians, he said, had the right idea with their uptempo style of play.

"You have to have puck movement," he would say. "Forget about the fighting. The physical game is OK, and body checks are good. But let's get the tempo up and use the great skills you have."

At Wisconsin, we always had optional practices on Sunday. Johnson would often skate with us and say he was Kharlamov -- Valeri Kharlamov, one of the great heroes in Russian hockey history who played on the national team several years and had tremendous skills. So, every Sunday afternoon, Bob Johnson was Kharlamov. It was a funny sight; he put on nearly all the equipment and would holler for the puck, making these fancy little moves to try and score beautiful goals like Kharlamov did.

Johnson had the world by the tail at Wisconsin; he was Mr. Everything. He won three national championships in 15 years and helped build a terrific program, which still exists. But people were skeptical about him moving to the NHL. Admittedly, I wondered whether his rah-rah college style would work in the pros. The NHL was a completely different way of life, but Johnson showed he was more than capable of making the adjustments.

Cliff Fletcher and the Calgary management deserve a lot of credit. They knew what they were getting when they signed Johnson as head coach in 1982. They understood what kind of players he needed and wanted on his team. They made drastic changes to get progressive thinkers and former college players, and he made it work.

Wayne Gretzky mentioned several times he was very impressed with Johnson from the start. When he entered the NHL, almost no coaches stood behind the bench and took a lot of notes. But he seemed to be scribbling things down all the time. Johnson had ideas for everything, and some were a little different than the mainstream NHL ideas.

Johnson gave everything a name and could sell his theory to his players. Between periods, he would say, "OK, we're going to get that Russian power play. It's been great in practice, and we'll score a few goals and be right back in this game." He was always upbeat, always selling and incredibly forceful and dynamic in his approach.

What Johnson said changed their attitude and hammered home his philosophy; there was never a bad day in hockey, even when you lose big in the playoffs.

Lanny McDonald told a story that epitomized who Johnson was as a coach. One year Calgary got pounded in a playoff game, losing by five or six goals. Everything went wrong. The players were all disgusted with themselves. They went in the locker room after the game, and the players were cursing and throwing things. At the same time, McDonald said all the players were thinking, "Oh, my God, what is he going to say to us? He is going to rip this place apart. He's going to scream and yell. That's what coaches always do."

Johnson waited a few minutes before entering the room. When he came in, he was bubbling over with enthusiasm.

"Oh, this is great. It was great what happened tonight," he said, while the players thought he had lost his mind. "We were lousy on the power play. Penalty killing was even worse. We couldn't do anything out there. Goaltenders, nothing worked. The great thing is we got all of it out of our system, all in one game. Now we have it all behind us. From here, it's onward and upward and we're going to take these guys."

The players were silent. McDonald had already been in the league a long time and had never seen a coach take that approach after getting pounded in a playoff game. Sure enough, McDonald said, they played great the next game and ended up winning the series. What Johnson said changed their attitude and hammered home his philosophy; there was never a bad day in hockey, even when you lose big in the playoffs.

You always learned something from him. Johnson really helped shape a changing NHL. Between his Calgary Flames and what was happening in Edmonton, with Gretzky, Mark Messier and Paul Coffey, the NHL was becoming more uptempo, open-throttle game, and Johnson was on the cutting edge. He had an effect on everyone around him.

Scotty Bowman had already been a head coach in the NHL for more than 20 years before he came into contact with Johnson as an assistant in Pittsburgh. And I'm sure Bowman would say he learned things from Johnson about how to handle players and sell players on his program. Bowman was a fan of Johnson.

One year in particular, Johnson used Coffey mostly as a role player, particularly in power-play situations and when the Penguins needed offense. Despite being a certain Hall of Famer, Coffey would sit for long stretches because of some deficiencies in his defensive game. But Johnson was able to sell Coffey about him being a big difference-maker. He would make everyone feel important; by the time Johnson was finished, the player was convinced.

Everyone around Johnson got caught up in his enthusiasm. There would be times when he was down if his team was on a losing streak, but he never let people see it. Around a crowd, you would never know if he had a bad day or a bad week. And Johnson made that last for the length of his Hall of Fame coaching career.

Brian Engblom is a hockey analyst for ESPN. A former defenseman, he played for two seasons under Bob Johnson at the University of Wisconsin before playing 11 seasons in the NHL and winning three Stanley Cups in six seasons with the Montreal Canadiens.