Last summer, Craig Custance - currently writing for The Athletic Detroit - took a cross-country journey to make a long-dreamed-of reality come true.

Starting with former Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Dan Bylsma, he worked his way around North America to go ‘behind the bench’ with some of the most iconic minds in the NHL coaching circuit. He sat down with them to watch a game from their most iconic (and sometimes, their only) Stanley Cup win - looking at everything from Boston’s triumph over the Vancouver Canucks and Pittsburgh’s meteoric rise to defeat Detroit to older wins like Colorado’s 2001 victory.

It’s a surprisingly fun book, more than just required reading on tactics and play systems.

Custance tells the story, chapter by chapter, from his perspective as much as he did from the coaches. The reader is driven across the country with Custance, buying a Winnebago motor home and frantically seeking out old game tape before sitting down on couches and futons and bleachers across the continent to witness greatness through the eyes of those that directed it.

Make no mistake, though; it’s a hockey book, through and through.

The forward immediately sets the tone, as the surprisingly poignant Sidney Crosby gives the reader a peek into the feeling of re-living one’s own greatness on TV years down the road. That carries over as each head coach - Bylsma, Claude Julien, Mike Babcock - walks Custance through what he was thinking as his team clinched the Stanley Cup.

While Colorado hasn’t made it to the second round of the postseason since 2008 - and have only seen the playoffs at all twice since then - there’s quite a bit of success in the team’s history from their first decade in the league.

The Avalanche made it to the postseason every single year from 1995 to 2006, excluding the lockout season.

That included four third-round exits, five years of 100-plus point regular season campaigns, and two Stanley Cups.

Custance brought fans back to that second championship when Bob Hartley was quite literally on top of the world.

The year that Hartley coached a star-studded Avalanche roster to their Stanley Cup win over the New Jersey Devils, helping Patrick Roy defeat Martin Brodeur and Joe Sakic overthrow Scott Stevens, he was three years into his NHL career.

Custance brings fans through the rise to Hartley’s Colorado job, starting with his job at a windshield factory and moving from a Junior A goaltending coach to the flight that took him to Colorado for his biggest gig to date. He had never played in the NHL.

Despite that, Hartley managed to coax some of Colorado’s final great years out of them, bringing them to the third round twice before they won the Cup in 2001 - and then once after that win, before he was fired mid-season in his fifth year with the club.

Hartley has been criticized plenty around the NHL. He struggled to find a gig after spending time with the Atlanta Thrashers, despite coaching the club to their only postseason appearance in franchise history - and then after getting time with the Calgary Flames, he was ousted again in 2016.

Custance helps Avalanche fans take a better look at the coach that gave them their last championship to date, though.

He walks them through who Hartley is as a person, how he helps his players off the ice and why he never drinks. He guides the reader through the decisions made in a high-flying Game 7 against the league’s most suppressive team, stopping along the way to chat about Hartley’s coaching tactics, work ethic, and even the hockey camp he was running when Custance sat down with him to watch the game.

It’s a side of Hartley that few have gotten to see over the years, despite his success with the various teams and leagues he’s worked in.

For Colorado fans, it wraps up an era of greatness. It may bring back some heartache, but it’s equally therapeutic.

[This excerpt from Behind the Bench: Inside the Minds of Hockey’s Greatest Coaches, by Craig Custance, is presented with permission from Triumph Books. For more information or to order a copy please visit www.triumphbooks.com/behindthebench.]