The Maritime Junior Hockey League (MHL) has honoured coaching legend Rick Bowness for his lifetime achievement in hockey, as well as being a role model and mentor through the years in the region. Bowness, who recently retired from coaching in the NHL after 38 seasons, headlined the Coaching Symposium at the Maritime Hockey Summit on Wednesday and took part in the Hot Stove Meet & Greet that evening.
The Moncton-native was selected in the second round, 26th overall, by the Atlanta Flames in the 1975 NHL Amateur Draft. He also played for the Detroit Red Wings, St. Louis Blues, and the original Winnipeg Jets, tallying eighteen goals and 37 assists in 173 NHL games.
Bowness became the first head coach of the Winnipeg Jets’ new AHL affiliate, the Sherbrooke Jets, in the 1982–83 season as a player-coach. After three seasons as an assistant coach in Winnipeg, he became head coach of the AHL’s Moncton Hawks for a season and a half before taking over mid-season as the head coach of Jets in 1988-89.
After two more seasons as an AHL head coach, Bowness would be behind the bench for the Boston Bruins, became the first head coach of the expansion Ottawa Senators in 1992-93, then served as head coach with the New York Islanders, Phoenix Coyotes, Dallas Stars, and finally the current Winnipeg Jets. Bowness coached 802 regular season games as head coach, and another 59 in the playoffs. His 2,726 games as an NHL head coach or assistant coach are the most by anyone in league history.
The Maritime Hockey Summit runs from August 7-11 in Fredericton, N.B., featuring Junior and Pre-Draft divisions to showcase players, an officials clinic, and hockey expo. Visit themhl.ca for more details and to register. Follow maritimehockeysummit on Instagram or Maritime Hockey Summit 24 on Facebook for the latest information.