Rick Bowness was on his boat in Florida on Monday when the Columbus Blue Jackets offered him the chance to come out of retirement and coach at age 70. He talked to his wife, Judy, and accepted the job right there on the water.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re happy,\u201d he said with his trademark laugh Tuesday. \u201cWe\u2019re relieved. We\u2019re back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Naturally, there are many questions: What has changed since he retired as coach of the Winnipeg Jets on May 6, 2024? Does he have the energy to jump back into the NHL? Can he help the Blue Jackets climb back into the race for the Stanley Cup Playoffs this season? What\u2019s the plan after that?<\/p>\n
Bowness and general manager Don Waddell addressed it all in a news conference before the Blue Jackets hosted the Calgary Flames at Nationwide Arena (7 p.m. ET; FDSNOH, SNW).<\/p>\n
No one has spent more time behind an NHL bench than Bowness has — 2,726 games as an assistant, associate or head coach. That includes 802 games as a head coach, guiding seven teams to a combined record of 309-408-37 with 48 ties.<\/p>\n
After the Jets were eliminated by a 6-3 loss to the Colorado Avalanche in Game 5 of the Western Conference First Round on April 30, 2024, he told his staff he was done. He announced his retirement days later.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew in my heart it was time,\u201d he said then.<\/p>\n
The issue was health. Bowness had missed 11 games after his wife had a seizure and four more due to a minor medical procedure that season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout the health issues, I would have not have stepped down,\u201d he said. \u201cThe passion is still there, but we had to overcome some issues, and I\u2019m not going to get into detail about those things. They\u2019ve been addressed over the last year and half. I feel a whole lot better. Judy\u2019s doing great. So, that opened the door again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bowness said he was content in Florida, seeing the kids, working for TNT, but his wife missed the NHL even more than he did.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019d always say, \u2018Well, what\u2019s going to happen if someone calls?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d say, \u2018They\u2019re not going to call. They\u2019re not going to call.\u2019 And then we just said, \u2018OK, well, we\u2019d have to consider it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
When Bowness received a text from Waddell on Monday, he thought Waddell wanted to know about a player he had coached that the Blue Jackets might want to acquire. But it wasn\u2019t about that.<\/p>\n
Columbus (19-19-7) was last in the Eastern Conference, seven points behind the Buffalo Sabres, Washington Capitals and Boston Bruins, who were tied for the second wild card in the East. The Blue Jackets had 12 games before the break for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, including eight at home.<\/p>\n
Waddell called it a \u201ccritical point.\u201d If they were going to replace coach Dean Evason, this was the time. Waddell went way back with Bowness — often referred to as \u201cBones\u201d — and thought he was what the Blue Jackets needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not going to find anybody with as much experience,\u201d he said. \u201cThe accountability and structure that he\u2019s going to bring to us is going to be welcomed by our players, and [he\u2019s] a great communicator.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bowness said he would have come out of retirement for only a few teams. Columbus was one of them, because he knows Waddell, thinks the team is better than its record and believes he can help.<\/p>\n
He said the immediate issues are the goals against, shots against, penalty kill, slot chances against and rush chances against.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t the \u201980s, man,\u201d said Bowness, who played 173 games in the NHL as a center from 1975-82 and first stepped behind the bench in the League in 1984-85. \u201cYou don\u2019t score your way into the playoffs. You defend your ways into the playoffs, and you get your offense from playing good, solid team defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that\u2019s team defense. That\u2019s everyone committed. So, we\u2019re just going to try to get everyone to buy in a lot more defensively, far more committed. There are some structural changes we can make, absolutely, and we\u2019re going to make them.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is about now.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll finish out this season,\u201d Waddell said. \u201cHim and I will sit down and the end of the season and assess not only the season, but how it went and make decisions moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe that will be a positive. Bowness looked back to when he joined the Jets on July 4, 2022, at age 67.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I went to Winnipeg, I thought I was retired and done then, and when they called, it was the same scenario,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ve got great ownership, great management. Loved to work with those people, and they\u2019ve got a good team. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I told the players [in Winnipeg], \u2018Listen, I\u2019m not looking for a job after this. I\u2019m coming in here and I\u2019m going to do and I\u2019m going to say whatever has to be done. I\u2019m not a 30-year-old coach worrying about my career. I\u2019m at the end of my career, and I know that.\u2019 And it\u2019ll be the same approach here.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnybody who\u2019s worrying about next year is taking the wrong approach on this whole thing. All that matters right now is this year. All that matters is this game tonight and what\u2019s going on next. Next year will take care of itself. It will, and I\u2019m not worried about next year one bit, and I came here to come in and get that mentality. We\u2019ve got to get dialed in on today, and then we\u2019ve got to get dialed in on tomorrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have the energy to do that, and that\u2019s my total focus.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rick Bowness was on his boat in Florida on Monday when the Columbus Blue Jackets offered him the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-407364","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}