Bowness beloved in Big D Stars aligned in praise for former bench boss By: Mike McIntyre Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Monday, Oct. 17, 2022

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This article was published 16/10/2022 (704 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DALLAS — Rick Bowness might be gone, at least here in Texas. But the former Dallas Stars coach, now plying his trade behind the bench of the Winnipeg Jets, is certainly not forgotten.

Bowness, 67, left quite a mark on the Central Division organization, as demonstrated by the string of players who were quick to sing his praises Monday. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to hear their kind words in person as he remains in Winnipeg following a positive COVID-19 diagnosis just prior to Friday’s season-opening win over the New York Rangers at Canada Life Centre.

“He’s just the guy that has the biggest heart that I’ve ever met for a coach and as a person,” Dallas forward Tyler Seguin said following the morning skate at American Airlines Center. “He’s one of those guys you can honestly say he’s a coach you want to play for. You hear it all the time — there’s players you want to win for, a guy gets a Stanley Cup and he gives it to a (certain) guy on the team. If you win a Cup, you’re giving it right to Bones. He’s that kind of person and coach. He’s the person that would get the Cup.”

He nearly did during the COVID-impacted 2019-20 season, which ended inside the Edmonton bubble with a hard-fought Dallas loss in the final to the Tampa Bay Lightning. That came just a few months after Bowness, who had served as an assistant coach since 2018, was promoted to the head-coaching role after Jim Montgomery stepped down for personal reasons.

“It started with probably family, the way that he can bring a group together. The way he can bring a group with wives and girlfriends into a whole family-oriented place. It was a place everyone was comfortable in,” said Seguin, 30.

“We definitely leaned toward the more emotional side of things over maybe a full business side of things. He has a really good balance of — this is obviously business and work — just bringing the family in. He’s probably even more heavy family than the latter but he’s a man you want to look up to as far as a leader and a husband or just how to operate as a human being in the world. Bones is one of the first guys that comes to mind.”

Bowness remained at the helm until the end of last season, when he and the team agreed to part ways. Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff came calling a few months later.

In the NHL for more than 40 years, Bowness is known for his ability to connect with players young and old. That was certainly evident in Dallas, where prospects such as defenceman Miro Heiskanen and forward Jason Robertson have blossomed into stars.

“Especially as a young guy, it’s hard to really break into the league unless you have a coach who allows you to do your thing, allows a little bit of leeway,” said Robertson, 23. “And even off the ice, he gave me some stuff to work on but he wasn’t really hard on me, he kept it loose and really let me do my thing.”

Robertson was a 2017 second-round pick who exploded with career highs of 41 goals and 38 assists in 74 games last season.

“For me, it was not something I could take for granted but it was nice to have the confidence of the coaches, especially as a younger guy. We all had that off-ice relationship with Bones, he was a great person. So, he made it a lot easier for a young guy to come in and perform,” said Robertson. “The best quality is probably communicating with players. He kept it open. He really kept us really close. I think that was his big thing is having the whole team, not just cliquey, but having everyone close.”

Winnipeg is similar in some ways to Dallas, with a core of established, veteran players but also up-and-coming ones such as Cole Perfetti, Brad Lambert and Ville Heinola. Given how Bowness worked with them — Heiskanen is now seen as one of the best young defencemen in the league — there’s reason for optimism.

“He’s a great guy. I really liked him. He’s an honest guy. It was great to play for him for a couple years,” said Heiskanen, 23. “Especially when he was the (defence) coach at the beginning for me. Of course I made some mistakes in my first year. He’s good with that. He’s an experienced guy and really knew the young guys coming in were going to make some mistakes.”

Peter DeBoer, who was hired to replace Bowness this summer, gave kudos to his predecessor for getting the Stars aligned.

“There are very few guys in the game that have been in the game as long as him and you can’t find anybody who has a bad word (to say) about the man,” said DeBoer. “I’ve got a tremendous amount of respect for him. I think he did a fantastic job here of laying a foundation of defending and being hard to play against, playoff success in hockey, and I think his fingerprints are on this group from his time here.”

DeBoer recalled some wise words from Sherry Bassin, a long-time general manager in the Ontario Hockey League, who once explained how hard it is to be both liked and respected.

“Rick is one of those guys who has the ability to do both of those things. We all like to think we can do a little bit of that, but he’s got that down pat,” said DeBoer.

Associate coach Scott Arniel led the Jets into battle for a second straight game on Monday — with plenty of input from Bowness.

“I’m just happy for him and Judy to bounce around real fast to a new team and get right back into it. I’m sure they’ll have a great time.”–Tyler Seguin

“He must be feeling a little better. We zoomed him in on one of our meetings here this morning, so he was here virtually, sitting in and watching the meeting with the players,” said Arniel. The hope is Bowness can fly to Denver on Wednesday in time for that evening’s game against the Colorado Avalanche.

Although he missed this homecoming of sorts, Winnipeg will return to Dallas on Nov. 25. There will likely be a lengthy welcoming committee waiting for him at the rink.

“Even when he was an assistant coach here, a lot of the time the (defencemen) would have a beer with Bones and then the next time, we’d get a text from Bones, and there’d be six or seven of us as forwards that would just go out and have a beer with him,” said Seguin.

“He kind of would just step back and we’d just talk, talking for friendship and relationship. And just obviously, having any guy come in and take over where we were that year. I think we were on a win streak at the time, we lost our head coach and he came in and then COVID happened and the bubble. To figure out what to do and being a leader, I don’t think there’s a better guy for Bones to handle that.

“I’m just happy for him and Judy to bounce around real fast to a new team and get right back into it. I’m sure they’ll have a great time.”

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg

Mike McIntyre
Sports columnist

Mike McIntyre grew up wanting to be a professional wrestler. But when that dream fizzled, he put all his brawn into becoming a professional writer.

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