Jets coach Rick Bowness retires after 38 years in NHL - ESPN

Winnipeg Jets coach Rick Bowness has retired after spending 38 seasons behind an NHL bench, the team announced Monday.

The 69-year-old Bowness is retiring after having one of the best seasons of his career. He guided the Jets to a 52-win campaign that saw them finish with 110 points before they lost in the Western Conference quarterfinal round to the Colorado Avalanche in five games.

Leading the Jets to one of the NHL's best records led to Bowness being named one of the three finalists for the Jack Adams Award which goes to the coach who is «adjudged to have contributed the most to his team's success.»

Shortly before announcing his retirement, the Jets posted a video on X with the caption, «Hockey won't be the same without you, Bones.»

Initially drafted in the NHL and the WHA, Bowness was a forward who scored 18 goals and 55 points in 173 NHL games with the Atlanta Flames, Detroit Red Wings, St. Louis Blues and the original Jets.

He was a player-coach with the Jets' AHL affiliate in 1982-83 and became a Jets assistant once the 1983-84 season was finished.

That would send Bowness down a path that led to him spending an NHL record 2,726 games behind a bench either as a head coach or as an assistant. His first NHL job was an assistant for the original Jets franchise for three seasons before he was named head coach for 28 games during the 1988-89 season.

Bowness returned to the NHL during the 1991-92 season when he was the head coach of the Boston Bruins for one year. He led the Bruins to a 36-win season and guided them to the Eastern Conference final where they lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Bruins did not bring Bowness back, but he was next named the first coach of the then-expansion franchise Ottawa Senators in