fighting back tears as he began to talk<\/a>. \u201cThree hits, 23 giveaways. Like, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m back (as coach next season), but if I\u2019m back, I\u2019m changing this culture. These guys, they don\u2019t care.<\/p>\n\u201cLosing is not important enough to them. It doesn\u2019t bother them. How can you go out and play like that? I should have done this about a month ago. But this is why we are where we are. This is why we\u2019re out of the playoffs, that kind of effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cLosing \u2026 you have to hate losing. I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s a meaningless game. I don\u2019t care. Show up and compete. Three hits! Twenty-three giveaways!\u201d<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets were 21-11-5 under Bowness, but they ended the season with just three wins in their final 13 games, including a six-game (0-5-1) home losing streak, to fall out of a playoff spot. Where did it all go wrong?<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause it got tough,\u201d Bowness snapped. \u201cBecause it got hard. Like we talked about after the Olympic break, it\u2019s gonna get harder. So everything is good as long as it\u2019s going their way. And now it gets tough, and we don\u2019t want to battle back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what\u2019s happened over the last week, the last couple of weeks. That\u2019s all that\u2019s happened. We\u2019re going to change that. If I\u2019m back \u2026 (GM) Don (Waddell) and I will talk, we\u2019ll get to that. But, man oh man, some of those guys are so lucky the season is over and there\u2019s no practice tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets have been one of the NHL\u2019s least successful teams since entering the league as an expansion franchise in 2000. They\u2019ve qualified for the playoffs only six times in 25 seasons and have only once made it past the first round.<\/p>\n
But they\u2019re currently on a playoff drought of six seasons, the second-longest in franchise history. Never before have the Blue Jackets lost six consecutive home games to end a season.<\/p>\n
Another ugly number that grew on Tuesday: Nationwide Arena sold out 15 times this season, and the Blue Jackets won just four of those games (4-6-5).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s terrible. Inexcusable,\u201d Bowness said of the home losing skid. \u201cIf they\u2019re not embarrassed by, not only tonight, but by that, they\u2019re on the wrong team. They\u2019ve got to be embarrassed by that.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Bowness was hired by the Blue Jackets on Jan. 12, the agreement was that he\u2019d finish this season and decide afterward, via conversation with Waddell, if he would continue as coach next season.<\/p>\n
It sure sounded like Bowness wanted to return, but the plan, Waddell has said, is to hold exit interviews with the players on Wednesday and meet later in the week to settle the coaching staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m gonna talk to Don, all right?\u201d Bowness said. \u201cBut the players were told tonight that if I\u2019m back, we\u2019re changing this freakin\u2019 culture, and we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSurprised is not the word. Very disappointed is the word. Very disappointed. We\u2019ve got a good team, and they do care. So I\u2019m mad right now, yeah. They do care, but they gotta show it on the ice. Like said in Carolina (a 5-1 loss on April 2), \u2018Shut up and let your play do the talking for you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets were eliminated on Monday when the Philadelphia Flyers clinched the final available playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. The Blue Jackets were in fifth place in the East and second place in the Metropolitan Division on March 24.<\/p>\n
It marked the second straight season they were eliminated with one game left in the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the game is meaningless (in the standings), but you still have to play,\u201d Bowness said. \u201cWe talked about it before, just play with some pride.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have great fans here. They deserve better than that, they do. I love the fan base. I love the enthusiasm. I love the city. They got a lot of good things going on here, and we\u2019re not putting up with that if we\u2019re back (as coach). Pfff, man.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked how he would change the culture \u2014 what is step one? \u2014 Bowness turned to his experience. The 71-year-old has been behind an NHL bench as an assistant or a head coach for nearly 3,000 games, more than any other coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, there are ways,\u201d Bowness said. \u201cI\u2019ve had enough experience. We can deal with this. I\u2019ve dealt with it before. If we\u2019re back, we\u2019ll straighten it out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2014 Before Columbus Blue Jackets coach Rick Bowness emerged for his postgame news conference on Tuesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[392,385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-585034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}