The bell rings, the door opens two inches and a right eye peeks through: “We don’t want any.”

Bruce Boudreau, always affable, always quick with a joke unless it’s after a loss, laughs hard before opening the front door wide open to welcome his guest to his beautiful three-story home in suburban St. Paul.

Naturally, and just like any hockey fan could have predicted, the TV in the living room is tuned to the NHL Network.

On this gorgeous Labor Day afternoon, the Wild coach takes a break from making himself angry all over again by re-watching last spring’s very short series against the St. Louis Blues and is instead watching a countdown of the 25 greatest lines in NHL history.

“I was just thinking when I came to the door, you’re going to think, ‘What a nerd,’” Boudreau said.

In Boudreau’s mind, the debate should be between the Canadiens’ Steve Shutt, Jacques Lemaire and Guy Lafleur and the Islanders’ Clark Gillies, Bryan Trottier and Mike Bossy.

Boudreau’s a self-professed hockey geek, and proud of it. So, frankly if that TV wasn’t tuned to hockey, it would have been a disappointment because what you see is precisely what you get with the veteran coach who was one of the best junior and minor-league players of all-time and has the best regular-season points percentage of any coach in NHL history with more than three years under his belt (.658).

Boudreau’s completely honest. And, he can be downright hilarious.

For instance, by sheer coincidence, preceding Wild coach and current Blues coach Mike Yeo’s Minnesota home is a stone’s throw from Boudreau’s home.

“If I had known, I wouldn’t have moved here,” Boudreau said.

“Out of respect?” Boudreau is asked.

“No, out of superstition,” Boudreau said, laughing.

Boudreau, 62, lives and breathes hockey — as his home shows.

It’s full of fun trinkets, like an Alex Ovechkin bobblehead (“that was the original one!”), a bubble hockey machine and a wall dedicated to the achievements of his four children from two marriages.

“I need to make a grandkid’s wall. I’ve got two going on three,” Boudreau says, smiling widely.

Wild coach Bruce Boudreau shows off some of his NHL memorabilia at the house. (Mike Russo/The Athletic)

In his wife’s office is everything from the two team’s jerseys – the Blackhawks and Maple Leafs — he wore in eight NHL seasons spanning only 141 games. It was hard for him to pick which Toronto sweater to frame because, after all, he wore what he jokes is a record SIX numbers (12, 19, 35, 11, 17 and 28) in his playing career for his hometown team.

“Every time I got called up, they gave me a different number,” Boudreau said, laughing.

In that same office are frames with the puck, game sheets and original lineup cards from his first victories coaching Washington and Anaheim.

“That Caps game vs. Philly, I was called up from [coaching] Hershey, designed a power play, they went out and did exactly what I told them would happen and scored. They came back to the bench, and I said, ‘Told ya I know what I’m talking about,” Boudreau said, laughing.

“That first win with Anaheim, what a win over L.A. Looking at the lineup, you wonder, ‘How the f—k did we win?’”

Boudreau laughs hard, again.

Boudreau continues the tour, proudly showing off a Hockey News feature on him headlined, “Road to Redemption” and a John Robertson column in the Toronto Sun headlined, “Wait for the next Zamboni, Bruce.”

“Read that story. Seriously, read it,” Boudreau said. “What a fun read. It’s my favorite article. It’s exactly what went on in my tenure as a hockey player.”

The tour continues to a glass case filled with trophies.

There’s a replica of the President’s Cup he won with Washington, the Jack Adams Trophy he won as Coach of the Year from 2008, his AHL Hall of Fame trophy.

“An awful lot of trophies in there,” Boudreau said. “When I was in Springfield, it seemed like every week I was getting a trophy,” Boudreau said.

The tour continues downstairs to his man cave, and it immediately becomes clear how big a fan he is of Notre Dame, the Cleveland Browns and great coaches.

There’s an autographed Rudy Ruettiger “Irish” helmet, an autographed Jim Brown jersey and sitting alone on one wall is a picture of the legendary Vince Lombardi with the quote, “The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.”

“I love that saying,” Boudreau said.

The great Vince Lombardi is a legend coaches in all sports look up to. (Russo/The Athletic)

He collects footballs and baseballs, and he has stories that go with each. He has photos everywhere that remind him of the good … and unfortunately sad times in his life.

Alone on one shelf is a picture of his one of his best friends, Ace Bailey, who died with fellow Los Angeles Kings scout Mark Bavis aboard United Flight 175 when it was flown into the South Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

It’s well known by now, but Boudreau was originally ticketed on that same doomed L.A.-bound flight. But, by fate, Boudreau changed his flight to the day before. Four days before, Bailey and Boudreau drove together to Bill O’Flaherty’s daughter’s wedding and shared a hotel room. But Boudreau couldn’t get Bailey to change his flight because changing the ticket would have cost him $800.

“Ace was the best. The absolute best,” Boudreau says, staring at Bailey’s picture. “Nicest person in the world.”

Two shelves under Bailey is a picture of Boudreau’s first NHL goal past current Penguins GM Jim Rutherford, the first goal in a 6-0 Maple Leafs win over the Detroit Red Wings on March 12, 1977. Coincidentally, the first assist went to Randy Carlyle, the man whom Boudreau replaced and then was replaced by as Anaheim’s coach.

“Top shelf over the glove,” Boudreau says, proudly.

Boudreau played in 141 NHL games, scoring 28 career goals. (Russo/The Athletic)

On the far left of the treasure trove of memorabilia is a less happy photo – a Dec. 28, 1978, Toronto Sun picture of Boudreau hitting the right post on a point-blank shot with Gerry Cheevers nowhere in the vicinity.

“Darryl Sittler was injured and we ended up tying the Bruins 2-2,” Boudreau said. “I intercepted the puck at the blue line and gave it to John Anderson, he pulled Cheevers out of the net and gave it back to me, but I got the puck right in that bad spot at the inside of the foot. If I had opened up, it would have been a slam dunk, but I didn’t and hit the post.”

Remember, this was Bruce Boudreau, the guy who was one of Wayne Gretzky’s heroes. The guy who once had a league record 165 points in a season for the Toronto Marlies, a record eventually broke by Gretzky three years later.

“The Leafs called me in the next morning and said, ‘You’re supposed to be this bigtime scorer, and you can’t even score on an open net?’” Boudreau said. “You’re going back down. I abuse John about this all the time. If it was a better pass, I would have been in the NHL forever.”

Anderson remains one of Boudreau’s best friends and is one of his Wild assistants.

There are also framed baseball jerseys from when he threw out first pitches, from when he played golf with Mike Weir, from when he won a championship coaching Mississippi in the East Coast League.

A framed uniform from when Boudreau threw out the first pitch. (Russo/The Athletic)

There’d be more memorabilia if not for the fact he was robbed by movers during his trek to Minnesota. Last summer, his moving company had an accident on a North Carolina highway that destroyed “one-third of two houses.”

Furniture was broken, so were five big-screen TVs, a popcorn maker, a chocolate fountain.

A safe containing his six championship rings and prized Spiderman Amazing Fantasy No. 1 and 2 comic books mysteriously disappeared.

“Those were the things in there that were most important to me,” Boudreau said, before grinning, setting up the punchline. “If you asked my wife, she’d say it was the marriage license.

“But not me, I’d say the rings and the comics. I mean, that was worth a lot of money!”

Boudreau met with his wife, Crystal, in 1990 while he was a player-coach with the Fort Wayne Komets.

“We lost the game. I’ve never been too nice when we lose, and I walked out and wasn’t looking and ran right into her,” Boudreau said. “I said, ‘I’m sorry,’ but something caught my attention and I said, ‘How old are you?’ She goes, “21.” I said, ‘Oh good, maybe we’ll see each other again.’”

How old was Boudreau?

“Thirty-six,” he said, laughing. “I saw her a couple months later at a booster club event and asked her out. My wife left me in September during training camp that year, so I didn’t know how to date. She was the first girl I was out with since, so it was like being a teenager all over again.”

Crystal, out of town on this day because she was in California running a half-marathon, teaches baking at Sur La Table in Woodbury, Minn. She has also effectively become the CEO of the United States Premier Hockey League Minnesota Blue Ox, the junior expansion team of which she and her husband recently became majority owners.

The garage of their home has basically become the team’s warehouse. The team debuts in the Wisconsin Dells on Sept. 15 and makes its home debut Sept. 22 in Coon Rapids against the Minnesota Moose on “Minnesota Wild Night.”

There will be giveaways, the Wild mascot and Wild players signing autographs.

“I told [Wild owner] Craig [Leipold] the other day, ‘I finally see things from your side now,’” Boudreau said. “He goes, ‘What are you talking about?’ I said, ‘I needed a fridge for the locker room, and I told them to go on craigslist and find one for 75 bucks or under. When you’re an owner, everything’s about the dollar. When you’re a coach, everything’s about, ‘Get me this player, get me this.’

“But I told the coach and GM, Jay Witta, ‘You want any help, any advice, I’m here for you, but I don’t want to interfere. I don’t want to micromanage coaching or GMing.”

The Boudreaus’ 19-year-old son, Brady, will be one of the Blue Ox’s goalies this year.

A year into his third NHL coaching stop, Boudreau so far loves Minnesota.

After playing for 17 teams and coaching 10 in the past 45 years, Boudreau and his wife love they can now establish roots in a single city, although Boudreau’s Twin Cities life is pretty much spent driving to the arena and coming home every single day after burying himself into work.

“My wife has made many more friends than me,” Boudreau said. “But Crystal’s great. When I was out of job, she was always like, ‘Let’s pack, where are we going next?’” Boudreau said. “Taking nothing away from my first wife, but we did the same thing the first 13 years and she got to the point where it was like, ‘I can’t move anymore,’ so that was that. Crystal’s been such a trooper. In this profession, you don’t get long lasting roots. You don’t get great friendships. But we don’t plan on going anywhere again. We’re selling the Hershey house, so this is the only place we’ve got, so I plan on staying here awhile.

“This is why we bought the hockey team. We want to establish roots, we want to hopefully win a Stanley Cup here.”

Boudreau’s giddy right now. It’s all about hockey again after a long offseason that began in disappointment last April when the Wild ruined a brilliant season by losing in the first round to Yeo’s Blues.

He can’t wait to start training camp Thursday. He badly wants to make amends for last season when a team that was one of the most exciting teams in the Western Conference for much of the season flamed out quickly.

“I just want to get going because I feel so much better when the players are around and I’m in the bustle of the work,” Boudreau said. “Plus, I love to win.”

The visit with Boudreau shifts to Wild Bill’s Sports Saloon in Woodbury. He orders a burger, fries, a bowl of beef barley soup and a Pepsi.

“This is where I come when we lose,” Boudreau said, laughing. “If we win, Crystal and I want to go home and watch the NHL Network. That’s our big deal. If we lose, we try to come to this place, especially if it’s not that busy, … because I don’t want people yapping.”

Boudreau interrupts and laughs: “See, you get me talking hockey, I get so excited, I start telling you all my secrets.”

At that moment, a woman walks over.

In a sharp Minnesota accent, the lady says, “Has anyone ever told you that you look like our Minnesota Wild hockey coach?”

Boudreau puts down his burger, smiles and says, “All the time, ma’am.”

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