Father David Bauer has been described as an inspirational coach, a caring educator, a master motivator and a dreamer. He was devoted to the concept that education and hockey could mix. He viewed hockey as a means to develop a better person. He believed that building men came before building hockey players.
"We try to give our players a well-rounded education, not merely ice skills but mental and moral conditioning as well," he told reporters in 1961. "We can't help but be better off in the long run."
"Dave Bauer was a class act all the way," states John McCormack, a teammate with the Majors. "He could've been a good one. He had more determination than (his brother) Bobby. I played against Bobby, he was finesse. Dave was more grinding, He had all kinds of talent, and when it came to determination, no one was better. He would've made it to the NHL easily if he had wanted to."
But Bauer had a vision for hockey in Canada. While attending the World Championship at Colorado Springs in 1962, he conceived of a permanent national hockey team. Canadian Amateur Hockey Association president Jack Roxborough encouraged Bauer to present his idea at the CAHA's annual meeting in Toronto that year.
Father Bauer patterned the National Team after what he had observed at St. Michael's College in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By taking players with some natural ability and instilling good discipline and a strong comprehension of the fundamentals of the game, he felt you could mould a team into a unit that was collectively much stronger than any one of its individual parts. "This was what Father Bauer did with the St. Michael's team when he coached it, and thus gained my respect, not only as a knowledgeable and capable teacher of hockey, but also as an astute, perceptive, and sensitive man," says Brian Conacher.
In addition, Father Bauer studied the European teams of the late 1950s that had developed into strong contenders for the World Championship. He found that three nations in particular -- Czechoslovakia, Sweden, and especially the Soviet Union -- had progressed rapidly in the hockey world, while Canada was beginning to lose its grip on hockey supremacy. In 1959, the Belleville McFarlands represented Canada and won the gold medal. In 1960, the Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmen, coached by Father Bauer's brother Bobby, represented Canada at the Olympic Winter Games, but the United States stunned the hockey world by working their first 'Miracle on Ice.' Canada took the silver medal.
"(Father Bauer) was enough of a hockey man to know that you do not build a team overnight," says Conacher. "His goals were to bring the World Championship back to Canada and to show that good hockey players can be good students, and that hockey can grow in conjunction with a continuing education. He saw hockey as an experience that could teach and develop men of character and fibre. Hockey as a game could help teach one how to play the game of life."
"The thing that appealed to me the most about Father Bauer when I came in contact with him was that he was a teacher, and that's what I thought a coach should be," says Conacher, a passionate devotee of Bauer's instructional methods. "I know that had I not played for Father Bauer, I would never have made it to the NHL. He taught me the discipline and the skills that were lacking."
The 'Nats' represented Canada at the 1964 Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria. The Soviet Union won all seven of their games while Canada, Czechoslovakia and Sweden each finished with records of 5 wins and 2 losses. "Every player played his guts out and no one will ever be able to say that the 1964 Canadian Olympic Hockey team quit under pressure," maintains Conacher. "The hard fact was that we just didn't have the horses to do the job. The Russians were older, more experienced and had more depth. And when you combined their situation with our inexperience, our youth and our lack of depth, it was a tribute to the excellent coaching abilities of Father Bauer that we were as good a team as we were."
Canada returned to the Olympics in 1980, and Father Bauer served as the team's managing director for the tournament in Lake Placid, New York. "I travelled with Father Bauer and the National Team to Europe and Japan prior to the 1980 Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York," wrote George Gross in the Toronto Sun. "Bauer instilled dignity in any discussion, whether it was sports, politics or religion."
On November 9, 1988, just a week after his 64th birthday, Father David Bauer succumbed to cancer in Goderich, Ontario. "Canada has lost a man who was extremely loyal to the ideals of amateur hockey," said Terry O'Malley.
In the years before his death, a multitude of honours had been bestowed on Bauer, acknowledging his importance to the game of hockey. He received the Order of Canada in 1967; had an arena in Calgary, which serves as the home base of Hockey Canada, named in his honour in 1986; and scholarships in his name are awarded at both St. Michael's College and at the University of British Columbia. In 1989, Father Bauer was posthumously inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in the Builder category, and he was added to the IIHF Wall of Honour in 1997.
But there can be no greater honour than the respect earned from the players whose lives he touched. "Father Bauer was very involved in the mental, physical and spiritual well-being of all his players," recalls Brian Conacher. "He truly was like a father to this whole group of guys. He was a very inspirational kind of coach. He left an indelible mark on every young man that he came in contact with."
Rod Seiling reflects on his coach with both St. Mike's and the National Team. "He was well-versed in hockey and well-versed as a person. He had very strong views on how to play the game. Bauer had the ability to take the elements -- checking, skating, shooting -- and mold a team. It didn't have to be the most talented team to be very competitive because of his ability to take a team that worked very well together using those basics."
The accolades to an outstanding individual conclude with Jim Gregory. "Father Bauer put me on the hockey path and I am truly indebted to him. My dream was to be involved with Junior hockey and I never imagined that I would get to work in the NHL, much less be an Honoured Member of the Hockey Hall of Fame."
To Father David Bauer, it all came down to one sentence: "If you can improve the boy as a person, you will improve him as a hockey player."
