Winnipeg Jets head coach Rick Bowness announces retirement

Winnipeg Jets head coach Rick Bowness announced his retirement Monday after nearly 40 years in hockey.

Bowness’ first NHL head coaching job was with the original Jets franchise as a mid-season replacement during the 1988-89 season. He has also served as the head coach with the Boston Bruins, Ottawa Senators, New York Islanders, Phoenix Coyotes and Dallas Stars plus assistant or associate roles with the Jets, Islanders, Coyotes, Vancouver Canucks, Tampa Bay Lightning and Stars.

Bowness said with a laugh that Jets executive vice president and general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff talked him out of retirement two years ago.

"(My wife) Judy and I were all set to call it a day then but if I was going to come back to coaching, I couldn’t have picked a better place to come back to and to finish my career with," Bowness said. "There’s a big draw here, obviously because of our previous experience here, we know the people that run the organization are fantastic people. This is a great organization and it’s a great city to play hockey in. That I knew. We have a tremendous, passionate following here, so I couldn’t have picked a better place to come back to and to finish my career.

"We’ve had great players and I’ve been fortunate to have a great coaching staff, all the accolades about the All-Star Game and the nomination, it’s the players and the coaches that got me there. Like I said a couple times, how many coaches can take the month of November off and still be where we are? Coaches and the players deserve all the credit for that. It’s been my pleasure to come back, it’s been a real honour for me to coach the Winnipeg Jets again."

His 2,726 games as a coach are the most by anyone in league history while his 309 wins as a head coach ranks him 54th all-time.

The 69-year-old Bowness was named a finalist for the Jack Adams Trophy for the first time this year after guiding the Jets to a 52-24-6 record during the regular season and finishing second in the Central Division and Western Conference with 110 points.

"I just love the game and I respected the game," an emotional Bowness said. "I love this league. I respect the league. I hope over my career that it’s not winning the Stanley Cup, that’s always been important, but over the years as you age you hope you have an impact on your players’ lives — off the ice, on the ice — and that’s been more important to me over the last 10 years.

"I’ve had some runs at the Stanley Cup and things happened that are out of your control with injuries and everything, and then you lose the Cup. … What is in your control every day is the impact that you can have on your players on and off the ice. That is within a coach’s control and I’ve always taken great pride in that."

Bowness took a leave of absence from the team in October and was away for 11 games when his wife Judy had a seizure. He also missed four games in March after undergoing a minor medical procedure.

The Jets were eliminated by the Colorado Avalanche in five games during the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Winnipeg won 7-6 during a wild Game 1 then lost four straight capped with a 6-3 defeat at home in Game 5.

Bowness said he knew it was time to retire after that loss.

"I didn’t like me. I didn’t like the way our team played, which is on me, so I was unhappy with myself, unhappy that we had lost and that bothered me," Bowness said. "As I was standing there and looking around, it dawned on me. Coaches have always told me and I’ve talked to the older coaches, older than me, and they’ve always said you’ll know it’s time. I was looking around, I wasn’t happy with the job I had done and it just hit me then, it’s time."

He coached in the All-Star Game for the first time this year serving as the bench boss for Team MacKinnon.

Winnipeg was also eliminated during the first round last year falling in five games to the eventual Stanley Cup winners, the Vegas Golden Knights.

Bowness posted a 98-57-9 regular-season record over his two seasons with the Jets.

He had a mutual option on the third year of his contract he signed when he joined the team on July 3, 2022.

His career on the bench began as a player/coach with the Sherbrooke Jets of the American Hockey League for the 1982-83 season. After retiring as a player, Bowness was named an assistant coach for the Winnipeg Jets in 1984.