Bowness bonds like Super Glue Jets bench boss steadfast in building player/coach relations By: Mike McIntyre Posted: 6:09 PM CDT Friday, Sep. 22, 2023

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/09/2023 (745 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Go around the Winnipeg Jets room and everyone has a similar story to share.

A phone call out of the blue in the middle of summer. A Happy Birthday greeting. A random check-in to make sure the newborn baby is doing well. An invitation to go golfing. A round of drinks on the road.

It’s the Rick Bowness way. And, given recent headlines about an out-of-touch coach in Columbus whose bizarre attempt to “connect” with his players quickly got him canned, it really is a breath of fresh air.

“That’s the great thing about Bones, he always has time for guys,” defenceman Dylan DeMelo told the Free Press.

“He genuinely cares for the people he’s coaching. Not just as players, but as people,” added forward Morgan Barron.

Unlike the aforementioned Mike Babcock, you won’t hear about Bowness demanding his players hand over their phones so he can peep through their photos in what is presented as an attempt to get to know them but really is just a power trip.

You will hear about a coach who goes out of his way to make personal connections.

“We want to be a family. We preach that all the time. We’re a Winnipeg Jet family. Well, being a family you take the time to get to know your family. All of them. Every one,” Bowness explained on Friday in a one-on-one conversation following training camp skates at the Hockey For All Centre.

“My wife, Judy, is fantastic with the wives. That’s very important to Judy and I that we create that atmosphere, that we create that culture here. You have to make sure you take the time to call, the time to talk to them — when they’re having babies, birthdays and all those things that are important. It’s all part of being part of a family that cares about each other. And that starts with us.”

It started almost immediately after Bowness accepted the Jets head coaching job in the summer of 2022. Barron, who was obtained in a trade from the New York Rangers in March of that year, had crossed paths with Bowness a few times since both men spend the offseason in Halifax. Suddenly, his new bench boss was on line one.

“He just wanted to get out for a round of golf to chit-chat,” Barron recalled Friday.

“I went to Oakfield (in nearby Enfield, N.S), where he golfs, and just kind of got to know him a little bit. We talked about my journey, his journey, what the team was going to be like. I think it was mutually beneficial to get to know the kind of man I was going to be playing for, and also for him to kind of pick my brain on the direction of the team and such.”

For those wondering, this is not often seen at the NHL level. Barron may only be 24, but Bowness is already the fifth different coach he’s played for and can attest to that.

“Almost every conversation I have with him, whether it’s good or bad, is usually about hockey but at the end it’s ‘How’s your family doing?’” said Barron, whose brother, Justin, plays in the Montreal Canadiens organization.

“He’ll usually have some stat about my brother or mention watching my brother’s game. He keeps up to date with it. I think he just genuinely cares about the people he coaches and that’s a huge characteristic. It makes guys want to play for him.”

DeMelo, 30, is about to start his ninth NHL season and remembers the surprise he felt when Bowness called him up shortly after taking the head coaching job, wanting to pick his brain,

“I know I’m not a star player. Sometimes that’s reserved for the star players. But even just to get asked about the makeup of the team, what went right, what went wrong the year we didn’t make the playoffs. I appreciated it,” said DeMelo.

“He called me a couple times this past summer and asked things about the team, how the summer was going, how the family’s doing. As much as he’s your boss, we’re all working together for the same goal, right?”

Last October, Dallas Stars star forward Tyler Seguin told the Free Press how he recalled Bowness — a man he still regards as a father figure to this day — used to take players out for a drink when he was an assistant with that club during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons.

“He’s just the guy that has the biggest heart that I’ve ever met for a coach and as a person,” said Seguin.

Bowness, 68, may be “old school” in terms of his tenure, but DeMelo said his “new school” approach to dealing with the modern athlete is truly refreshing.

“You know those old hockey men, for lack of a better word, are sometimes stuck in their ways. He’s very receptive and open to different ideas, which is huge,” said DeMelo.

“We all have good ideas in here, right. We all have good hockey minds. That’s why we’re here. Coaches, staff, players. So it would be kind of silly to not pick everybody’s brains and see what we can come up with.”

To be clear, it’s not always sunshine and rainbows. As Bowness stated earlier this week, he didn’t take the Jets job with the idea of winning a “popularity contest.” Nor is he worried about potentially stepping on sensitive toes, such as when he removed the captaincy from Blake Wheeler last September or publicly called out his group for a lacklustre final game effort in the playoffs last spring against the Vegas Golden Knights.

“The thing I like about him is he doesn’t let us off the hook. He stays on us. There’s some times where you’re like ‘C’mon, Bones, lay off us a little bit.’ But it all comes from a good place,” said DeMelo.

“He wants to win. It’s a common goal for all of us. If we’re not pushing the envelope, it does a lot of times start with the coach. He’s the one that’s the vocal guy to you guys, to us. Bones has done a great job for me personally in terms of trying to be a little more aggressive, trying to go after it and having the confidence to do it.”

Bowness, who has 173 NHL games as a player on his resume and now nearly four decades behind a bench in some capacity, has seen plenty of examples up close where a dressing room is run like a dictatorship.

Not on his watch, of course.

“I remember, going back to the early 90s when I was coaching in Boston, it drove some of those (in management) nuts that I would talk to the players as much as I did. I didn’t care. That’s the way I was going to coach,” said Bowness.

“I always said I wanted to coach like I wanted to be coached. Any other way is not me. Be true to myself first and foremost, the rest will take care of itself.”

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

X: @mikemcintyrewpg