‘Anytime you make anybody feel uncomfortable, you should take a look at yourself’: Oilers’ Babcock on time in Columbus
In his first meeting with the press in his new role, Mike Babcock is still answering questions about his past.
On Tuesday, the Edmonton Oilers announced that Babcock has been hired as the team’s new head coach. During a media availability, he was asked whether he believed he had done any wrongdoing prior to resigning as head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets three years ago. He admitted that there wasn’t a whole lot of cohesion within the team, and his wife, Maureen, persuaded him to leave the team.
“It was very evident before the year started,” Babcock said. “I hadn’t benched anybody, I hadn’t talked to anybody, I hadn’t sat anybody out, and it was evident that we weren’t together as a staff right from the get-go. My wife gave me a call, and she said it’s time to get out of there. I’ve been retired, I was pretty good at it. I got back to being retired.”
Babcock was criticized for his antics during the 2023 preseason, reportedly requesting to scroll through players’ pictures on their phones, which caused an uproar in the hockey community. Babcock stepped down before even coaching a preseason game. The Ontario native had been away from the game ever since. When the NHLPA got wind of the Oilers’ interest in potentially hiring Babcock, they requested the NHL investigate what happened three years ago. Even then, the league cleared the Stanley Cup champion to return to the game, if he so chose.
“To be honest with you, anytime you make anybody feel uncomfortable in your life, you should take a look at yourself, and you should say, ‘how could I do that better?'” Babcock said. “And I think that’s what you do as a person, is you try to always be better at what you do. The situation in Columbus, they’ve had a full review, and I’m thankful to the NHL and NHLPA for doing that. It didn’t work out for us. We’re excited about making it work.”
Oilers general manager Stan Bowman said he and Babcock had spoken numerous times, and that Babcock had also met with CEO and President Jeff Jackson.
“I went into that meeting really with no expectations,” Bowman said. “I had a lot of questions to ask. I walked out of there very impressed.”
Bowman mentioned that Babcock requested to speak with a couple of the players to see how they would feel about him coming on board.
“Mike met with some of our players. the next part of the process is we had a meeting with ownership so this went on for it stretched out for a long period of time and once we crossed all those bridges and we really felt Mike was the guy. Then we reached out to the NHL to contact them and get their thoughts on Mike returning to coach for us, and they wanted to do a review of things, and it took a little bit of time, so we were patient with that. And at the conclusion of that, they said that they put their release out, whatever it was, about a week or so ago, and then we moved forward. So that’s what took us here today.”
It wasn’t clarified which players Babock was in contact with.
Babcock has a winning pedigree. He has taken three teams to the Stanley Cup Final, winning it all with the Detroit Red Wings in 2008. He has a record of 1,301-700-418, with 19 ties in 16 seasons behind the bench, making stops with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and Toronto Maple Leafs.