The Coyotes are the fifth NHL head-coaching assigment for Bowness after previous stops in Winnipeg, Boston, Ottawa and the New York Islanders.

Coyotes may be Bowness's best
By John McGourty | NHL.com
Sept. 23, 2004

Phoenix Coyotes head coach Rick Bowness has now coached more NHL teams, five, than he played for, four.

After a fine junior season with the Montreal Red White And Blue in which the playmaking center had 24 goals and 76 assists for 100 points, Bowness was the second pick, 26th overall, of the Atlanta Flames in 1975. He broke in with the Flames in 1974-75 and later played for the Detroit Red Wings, St. Louis Blues and Winnipeg Jets.

Bowness began his coaching career with the American Hockey League's Sherbrooke Jets as a player/coach during the 1982-83 season. He then returned to the Winnipeg Jets as an assistant coach for the next four years. Bowness became the interim head coach during the 1988-89 season after spending nearly two years as coach and general manager of his hometown Moncton, New Brunswick Hawks, then Winnipeg's AHL affiliate.

Bowness coached the Boston Bruins' AHL affiliate in Maine for two seasons before jumping to the NHL club. He coached the Bruins to the Wales Conference Finals in 1992 and became the Ottawa Senators' first coach the following season. Bowness spent three and a half seasons at the Senators' helm. He was only the second coach to last more than three seasons with an NHL expansion franchise.

Bowness then coached the New York Islanders from 1996-98. He spent the past four seasons as an assistant coach in Phoenix and became head coach in February.

Bowness will be greeting a number of new players to the desert as GM Mike Barnett had a busy summer, acquiring Brett Hull, Petr Nedved, Mike Ricci, Denis Gauthier, Oleg Saprykin, Boyd Devereaux, Jason Chimera and Sean O'Donnell. Thus, they'll be bigger, faster, stronger and have more scoring.

Those skilled veterans will help the team over the next few seasons and their professionalism will be model for the Coyotes' cast of exciting young players. Bowness has a reputation for bringing out the best in young players, a key component in Barnett's overall plan.

When did you begin thinking that you would like to be a hockey coach?

I started thinking about getting into coaching when I was about 25 or 26, the age where the reality of not playing forever starts to creep in. I loved the day-to-day grind of playing, the practices, the games, being in the locker room and the camaraderie that exists there. The competition and coaching keeps you close to that excitement.

Was there a situation or coach that inspired you?

John Ferguson Sr. and I talked about getting into coaching when I was finished playing in Winnipeg and he gave me my first opportunity but it was the love of the game that drove me to coach.

How did you come to be player-coach at Sherbrooke?

I was sent down to Sherbrooke, the Jets' top farm team in the AHL, after training camp. Our coach, Ron Racette, had a brain tumor removed in July and the doctors would not clear him to start the season. Fergie asked if I would be interested in being the player/coach for a few months while Ron continued to recuperate and I jumped at the chance. Unfortunately for Ron, he missed the full season and I ended up doing both jobs for the year. It was a great learning experience and it showed me I had a long way to go to prepare to be a coach, but it also showed me that I loved to coach.

You took the Boston Bruins to the Eastern Conference Final in 1992, losing to Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh. That must have been a very exciting year for you. Can you talk a little about the excitement of getting that far and the disappointment of losing so late in the playoffs?

The excitement of that ride to the Conference Finals is why we are all involved in hockey: The rush you get from winning. No one expected very much from us that year. We were rebuilding and Cam Neely was hurt and would not play at all in the playoffs. We beat Buffalo in seven games and then swept Montreal, which was huge to the Bruins management and fans because of the great rivalry between the two teams. Losing to Pittsburgh was tough because they swept us, but there was no question that they were the better team, which takes some of the sting away from losing so close to getting to the Finals.

You have to be excited about the additions this summer to the roster. How do you see these new players fitting in and helping your team? Does this team have what it takes to win its division, conference, and League?

The new players we have added are all great fits for our team. We needed more speed, more grit, more experience, more goal scoring and we addressed all those areas with these moves. You add Ladislav Nagy, Mike Johnson and David Tanabe, three very important players who were injured over the last 30 games, and with our new players, we'll have at least eight proven NHL players who were not in our lineup at the end of the season.