Ex-Canucks coach Rick Bowness tees off on his team with epic rant: 'These guys, they don't care'
It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
Ex-Vancouver Canucks associate coach Rick Bowness looked like he was about to author one of the best stories of the NHL season.
He got a call in January while on his boat in Florida, with an offer from Don Maloney to coach the struggling Columbus Blue Jackets.
After leaving the warm confines of sunny Florida, he brought a saviour-like attitude to Columbus, leading the team to an astounding 19-3-4 record from the time he got hired up until March 24. At the time, they were second in the Metropolitan Division.
Then, it all came to a crashing halt.
Columbus hit the skids with a 2-8-1 over their last 11 games. They were leapfrogged in the standings by playoff-bound teams like the Pittsburgh Penguins, Ottawa Senators, Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers.
On Tuesday night, after they lost a meaningless game to the Washington Capitals following their playoff elimination, an emotional Bowness sounded off on his team.
“I got to look at the stat sheet. Three hits, 23 giveaways…I don’t know if I’m back, but if I’m back, I’m changing this culture.”
“These guys, they don’t care. Losing is not important enough to them. It doesn’t bother them. Like, how can you go and play like that?”
“This is why we’re out of the playoffs. That kind of effort.”
Then, Bowness dropped the classic Shorsey line when outlining the type of team he wants to coach.
“You have to hate losing,” he said. “I don’t care if it’s a meaningless game. I don’t care.
Show up and compete.”
It was a rant so strong that it may have Canucks fans yearning for Bowness to come back to Vancouver.
The 70-year-old coach was also asked why his team struggled to finish the season after playing like one of the NHL’s best teams for two months after he was hired.
“Because it got tough,” he said. “Because it got hard. Like we talked about after the Olympic break, it’s going to get harder. Everything is good as long as it’s going their way. And now it gets tough.”
“We don’t want to battle back,” Bowness continued. “And that’s what’s happened over the last couple of weeks.”
“We’re going to change that. If I’m back, and I don’t know if I’m back….but man, oh man, some of those guys are so lucky the season is over, and there’s no practice tomorrow.”
It might be fair to wonder if the Jackets players want Bowness back after this public lashing. In the aftermath, The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline reported that some players did push back on the comments from Bowness.
Players are drawing a distinction between Bowness’ “not hating to lose” and, what they feel is more “learning how to win.”
Captain Boone Jenner taking questions now, also taking issue w the “they don’t care” narrative,
This, of course, may only strengthen Bowness’ contention.
2/2— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) April 15, 2026
Others weren’t faulting the coach for his intensity.
“He’s a guy that hates to lose,” Cole Sillinger said. “You don’t want to let him down.”
“It’s on us in here as players to get the job done. It’s not the coach, it’s not the management. It’s on us players to put our best foot forward and make sure that our game is at the top level.”
Bowness also revealed publicly that he’s given us players an ultimatum.
“The players were told tonight that, if I’m back, we’re changing this freakin’ culture, and we are,” he said.
Bowness spent seven seasons behind the Canucks bench as Alain Vigneault’s right-hand man. He oversaw the most successful run in franchise history, culminating in a Stanley Cup Finals appearance in 2011.
Since leaving the Canucks, Bowness has made it to the Finals as an assistant coach with the Tampa Bay Lightning. He also led the Dallas Stars to a Finals appearance as head coach in 2020, followed by a two-year stint as bench boss for the Winnipeg Jets.