Call it 'Bowness Time.' Lured out of retirement, Blue Jackets coach enjoying playoff-race pressure

Age has its privileges, something Rick Bowness is fondly enjoying in the overtime of his coaching career.

At 71 and by his count twice retired, Bowness hasn’t lost the urgency to win in his latest interim job coaching the Columbus Blue Jackets. What he has also instead is that he is freed from the anxieties and fear of losing with Columbus in the thick of a tight race for the Eastern Conference’s final playoff spots entering the last week of the season.

“I’m probably more relaxed now,” Bowness said on Thursday, before a 5-0 loss at Buffalo.

Relaxed is a word Bowness would not have previously contemplated using upon reflecting on the early days of a career that’s spanned five decades and eight teams, including both iterations of the Winnipeg Jets.

“At 41, you’re worried about your career. You’re worried about your next job and everything,” Bowness said.

“Well, I’m not, right? And I had the same thing in Dallas,” he added, referring to his previous stint as the Stars interim coach. “I’m not worried about extending my career. Man, I’m good. So we’re just going to enjoy every day we can.”

Call it bonus time. Or, perhaps, “Bowness Time.”

Lured out of retirement to breathe life into the under-performing Blue Jackets in January by replacing Dean Evason, Bowness had nothing to lose in trying to push Columbus back into contention.

Under Bowness, the Blue Jackets have gone 20-9-5 to jump from being tied for last in the East standings to sitting two points out of third in the Metropolitan Division with three games remaining. His upbeat approach hasn’t wavered amid the Blue Jackets’ sudden 2-7-1 skid.

Asked what it will take for forward Kirill Marchenko to regain his scoring touch, Bowness said: “I’d like to see him smile a little bit more, loosen up.”

And he focused solely on the positives following the loss to Buffalo in a game the Blue Jackets outshot the Sabres, 37-24.

“That second period was one of the best periods we played all year. And we came out of it with nothing to show for it,” he said, before looking ahead to the next game at Montreal. “If we play like that again on Saturday, we’ll be fine.”

The Blue Jackets have bought in, crediting Bowness for his experience, clear messaging and steady approach.

“He gives us confidence the way he backs us. And you want to play for a guy like that. And we want to do well for him, honestly,” forward Charlie Coyle said. “It’s what we needed and it’s what he brought. I don’t think it’s any fluke that we started playing well.”

Bowness was a journeyman player who split six NHL seasons across four teams before turning to coaching in a career that’s spanned North America, from an AHL stint in his hometown of Moncton, New Brunswick, to stops with the Islanders, Phoenix and Vancouver.

He was the first coach of the Ottawa Senators, a franchise that struggled in its infancy, and was fired following a three-plus-year tenure. Success didn’t help Bowness in his first and only season in Boston, where he oversaw an injury-depleted team that reached the 1992 East final, only to be fired and replaced by Brian Sutter.

His career numbers are relatively modest, with a regular-season record of 330-417-42 and 48 ties, and 28-31 in the playoffs.

Some of Bowness’ most memorable highlights came with Dallas during the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season, upon taking over as interim coach after Jim Montgomery was fired for unprofessional conduct. The Stars finished fifth in the West but turned it on to reach the Stanley Cup Final before losing to Tampa Bay.

Bowness was rewarded by being hired as the Stars' full-time coach before stepping down after his two-year contract expired. He spent the next two seasons in Winnipeg before announcing his retirement, citing health and family reasons.

Bowness said he’s retired twice, though he didn’t specify the first time.

And yet, the chance for one more comeback was difficult to pass up when Columbus called.

“I just love it. That’s why I came back,” Bowness said in January. “The one thing I missed was the interaction with the players. I loved that part of coaching.”

He had the same answer in Buffalo this week, especially with Columbus in the playoff mix.

“I love being in these races. What better time of year to be playing,” Bowness said.

“There’s enough teams in our league that aren’t playing meaningful games, right? We are,” he added. “Every day in this league is a blessing.”

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Columbus Blue Jackets coach Rick Bowness, center top, looks on during the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Winnipeg Jets in Columbus, Ohio, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Paul Vernon)

NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk announced plans Wednesday for one of the biggest sales of stock to the public ever for his space company that is currently losing billions of dollars year.

A filing Wednesday shows Musk’s SpaceX lost $2.6 billion from operations last year on $18.7 billion in revenue, and the losses kept piling up at the start of this year, too.

The prospectus did not put a dollar figure on the amount Musk hopes to raise but various reports have put it at $75 billion or so. An offering of that size would easily surpass the current title holder, Saudi Aramco, the oil giant that went public seven years ago and raised $26 billion.

SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has said the money will help to finance projects to put men on the moon and maybe someday Mars in its quest to make humans an intergalactic species as they face existential threats that could wipe out civilization.

“We do not want humans to have the same fate as dinosaurs,” the filing stated.

The stock sale could also make Musk, a major owner who founded SpaceX in 2002, the world’s first trillionaire. Forbes currently puts Musk's net worth at $839 billion.

In addition to making reusable rockets to hurl astronauts into orbit, SpaceX has other businesses, some successful, some struggling — and with plenty of questions marks.

The document showed Starlink, the world’s largest satellite communications company, is a big cash generator for the company, generating $4.4 billion in operating income last year. The business uses 10,000 satellites in low orbit to provide internet service to 10 million people in 150 countries and territories.

Among the struggling business are two Musk units that were recently acquired by SpaceX — his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, and his artificial intelligence business, xAI. Those purchases were blasted by some SpaceX investors as bailouts because the businesses are big money losers.

The prospectus said its AI business lost $6.4 billion in operations last year.

The original SpaceX business, making rockets and staging launches, has been helped by massive government contracts, which themselves raises questions that could come back to haunt the company. Given Musk’s close relation to the Trump administration, government ethics lawyers and watchdogs have asked if he has gotten special treatment to win taxpayer money and whether that good luck will run out once President Donald Trump is out office.

SpaceX has won contracts worth $6 billion from NASA and the Defense Department and other government agencies in the past five years, according to USAspending.gov. The company notes in its filing that a fifth of its revenue last year was attributable to the federal government.

Musk was the biggest donor to Trump’s presidential campaign and is still a big backer despite their sometimes rocky relationship after his stewardship of the government cost-cutting effort called DOGE early last year.

The document also shows Musk will be able to exert big control over the business.

It says Musk and certain other shareholders will receive shares in a special class of stock that gives them 10 votes for each share they hold. Those shareholders will be able, among other things, to elect a majority of the company’s board of directors.

“This will limit or preclude your ability to influence corporate matters and the election of our directors,” SpaceX said in a warning to prospective investors.

SpaceX will be able to pitch the offering to investors -- in what’s known in Wall Street parlance as a “road show” -- 15 days after making its prospectus public. In this case, that works out to June 4.

FILE - Elon Musk attends the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

SpaceX's latest version of it's mega rocket Starship is prepared for a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Wednesday, May 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)