Some of the more fiery comments from a coach on their own team in a while came from Winnipeg Jets’ head coach Rick Bowness Thursday night. Those came in Bowness’ press conference following the Jets’ 4-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 5 of their first-round series, which saw them eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs. There, Bowness (seen above after an April 22 press conference) took a couple questions, ranted about how “disappointed” and “disgusted” he was with the team, then walked out of the press conference less than a minute after he first sat down:
A clearly frustrated Rick Bowness went OFF in his post game press conference after the Jets 4-1 loss to Vegas.
“Their better players were so much better than our players tonight and it’s not even close” #NHLJets pic.twitter.com/CWkq7Iewkb
— Connor Hrabchak (@ConnorHrabchak1) April 28, 2023
A reporter asks “Overall thoughts on that one?”, and Bowness says “Overall thoughts? I’m so disappointed and disgusted right now, that’s my thoughts.” He’s then asked “Where does the disgust come from?” and Bowness says “No pushback. But it’s the same crap we saw in February. It was. As soon as we were challenging for first place and teams were coming after us, we had no pushback. This series, we had no pushback. Their better players were so much better than ours, it’s not even close.”
Bowness is then asked “It seems like you’ve been holding onto these feelings for a bit,” and says “Yep.” He’s asked “Was this just from tonight’s game or the final one to release that?”, and says “It started in January and February.” He’s then asked “What is it about this team’s leadership core and top-end players?”, and says “We’ve got to push back. There’s go to be a pushback, there’s got to be pride. You’ve got to be able to push back when things aren’t going your way. Their better players were so much better than ours tonight. They were the better team in the regular season, they were the better team in this series.”
Bowness then goes “Anything else? Good. Thanks!” and gets up and leaves. So that’s quite the short press conference. It’s unclear if this will lead to a fine from the league, as it did for John Tortorella in 2020 (Bowness at least took five questions, more than the two Tortorella took), but it certainly will go into the annals of fiery NHL press conferences.
But what’s really unusual with this one is the way it’s Bowness going off on his own team rather than the media or the league. And it’s rather different than the other prominent press conference this week after a series loss, where Giannis Antetokounmpo declined to view the Bucks’ season as a failure. It’s not the first passionate thing from Bowness, either, as he famously challenged Minnesota coach Dean Evason to a fight during a game earlier this month (Evason declined):
Dean Evason’s reaction to Rick Bowness challenging him to a fight is priceless pic.twitter.com/9u5eQmKTj3
— Rob Taub (@RTaub_) April 12, 2023
Bowness does have a point about the team’s poor play since January, though:
After leading the Western Conference on January 18th with 59 points, the Jets went 18-22-2 (25th in the NHL) https://t.co/lswCLuBm4D
— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) April 28, 2023
The 68-year-old Bowness played in the NHL from 1975-82 (including with the first version of the Jets) and finished his playing career as a player-coach with the AHL’s Sherbrooke Jets in 1984. He then became an assistant coach with the NHL’s Jets, took their head coaching role on an interim basis midseason in 1989 (but only finished out that season), and continued as an NHL and AHL assistant and head coach since then. His NHL head coaching stops have come with the original Jets, the Boston Bruins (1991-92), the Ottawa Senators (1992-96), the New York Islanders (1997-98), the Phoenix Coyotes (2004), the Dallas Stars (2019-22), and the new Jets (2022-23), with both his Islanders and Coyotes jobs also coming as midseason replacements. Overall, he has a 258-384-48 regular season record and a 27-27 playoff record.
[Sportsnet; photo from James Carey Lauder/USA Today Sports]
