Some people are lucky enough to have one interesting career. Pat Hughes had two: playing in the NHL for nine years, then serving 20 years in the Ann Arbor Police Department, retiring as a Detective Sergeant. He played for legendary coaches Scotty Bowman in Montreal and Glen Sather in Edmonton, and alongside all-time greats Guy Lafleur, Wayne Gretzky, and Mark Messier, winning three Stanley Cups, then earned a reputation as one of Ann Arbor’s most respected law enforcement officers. He talks here about the lessons he learned along the way.
In this episode Pat tells us what he learned becoming one of the first college hockey players to get to the NHL – “There is no substitute for honest effort,” then playing for two hockey dynasties, the Montreal Canadiens and the Edmonton Oilers. While Montreal was an established, old-school organization, and Edmonton was run by young players whose coach gave them more freedom, the two clubs had a lot in common, as all winning teams do.
“Great teams are inclusive,” Hughes says. “They bring you in right away, and make you feel like you belong.” He explains how both teams did that, and made every player feel important and valuable to the team’s mission.
He also talks about both Hall of Fame coaches, Montreal’s Scotty Bowman, and his remarkable ability to influence his players, and Edmonton’s Glen Sather, who took a different approach in some ways, with a younger, looser bunch, but kept his finger on the pulse of his players, and still instilled the principles needed to win four Stanley Cups in five years.
Hughes also talks about what he learned playing alongside such all-time greats as Yvan Cournoyer, Guy Lafleur, and Ken Dryden in Montreal, and Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, and Paul Coffey in Edmonton, among others. A humble man, Hughes had to be prompted to discuss one of his highlights: five goals in one game against Calgary – the second highest total any NHL player has achieved, including Gretzky.
The conversation then turns to Pat’s lifelong interest in law enforcement, and how he realized his second dream by becoming a Detective Sergeant in the Ann Arbor Police Department, and the lessons he learned in his 20-year career, including how to settle down a college party run amuck without sparking a riot, and how to transfer his ability to stay calm under pressure from his hockey career to the AAPD.
