Boughner named OHL Coach of the Year

The Ontario Hockey League today announced that Bob Boughner of the Windsor Spitfires won the Matt Leyden Trophy as the OHL’s Coach of the Year for the 2007-08 season.

In just his second season behind the Spitfires’ bench, Boughner guided the team to a 41-15-7-5 record that left them tied for third overall in the OHL with 94 points this season, a 51 improvement over the previous season. It was only the third time in franchise history that they achieved 40 or more wins in a season and the second time that they achieved 90 or more points.

Boughner, a 37-year-old Windsor native, purchased the Spitfires along with Warren Rychel and Peter Dobrich in 2006. He guided them to an 18-43-2-5 record in his first season behind the bench. After graduating from the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds in 1991, Boughner played 10 seasons in the National Hockey League with the Buffalo Sabres, Nashville Predators, Pittsburgh Penguins, Calgary Flames, Carolina Hurricanes and Colorado Avalanche before retiring in 2006.

The Spitfires started this season with five straight wins and enjoyed a seven game winning streak in November. They finished the season with eight wins in their final nine games.

Past winners of the Matt Leyden Trophy include Dale Hunter, Brian Kilrea, Craig Hartsburg, Jacques Martin, George Armstrong and Terry Crisp. He is the first coach of the Spitfires to win the award.

The Matt Leyden Trophy is voted on by the member teams of the Ontario Hockey League. In a first round of balloting, teams vote for the top coaches, within their own conference. The top three nominees from both the Eastern and Western conferences are declared as finalists. A second round of voting is then conducted on a league wide basis where teams vote for any of the six finalists. At no time during the voting can a team vote for their own candidate. Coaches receive five points for a first place vote, three points for a second place vote and one point for a third place vote.

Boughner received 57 points in the voting while Peter DeBoer of the Kitchener Rangers finished second with 45 points and George Burnett of the Belleville Bulls was third with 44 points.

The Matt Leyden Trophy has been awarded annually since 1972, to the Coach of the Year in the Ontario Hockey League. The award is in recognition of the contributions of Matt Leyden, past President of the Ontario Hockey Association from 1965-1967. The Oshawa native was honored as a lifetime member of the OHA in 1972.

Boughner will be formally presented with the award during the 2007-08 OHL Awards Ceremony, which will be held on Wednesday June 4 at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.