On the first night of the Caps’ annual Mentors’ Trip in Chicago, the Caps players and staff and their mentors assembled for a team dinner in a large ballroom at the team’s hotel in the Windy City. After a brief cocktail reception, the group was seated at a dozen or so round tables for a leisurely meal together.
But first, Caps coach Spencer Carbery stood at the dais and addressed the group, asking them to raise their glasses for a toast.
“To all of you, the mentors in the room that are here with us today, we’re going to enjoy these next few days and just ow much we’re going to be able to share in these few days,” said Carbery. “And I challenge all of us in here – including myself – to tell your mentor how much they’ve made an impact and tell them how much they mean to you. Because truly, the people in this room mean so much, and they do so many things for our players, our staff, and they’re the reason we’re all sitting in this room, in the National Hockey League, the best League in the world.
“And so, it’s so important for us to recognize you as mentors, and then also, there’s a lot of mentors that we have that are not in this room, and some that we’ve lost over the years that I guarantee are smiling down on us tonight, that we’ve lost over the years, and even this year as well, the mentors that mean so much to all of us. I know they’re smiling down, watching this night, just thumbs up, and going, ‘I know they’re going to enjoy it, and I know I was a part of that person being where they are today, in the National Hockey League, representing the Washington Capitals.’ So, I just want to toast all of our mentors.”
Among those recently lost mentors is Alan Dowd, father of Caps center Nic Dowd and his older brothers Matt and Josh. Alan Dowd was a doctor and wife Liz is a nurse. Both are from England, and they moved to the US and started a medical practice in Huntsville, Ala., where they raised their three boys. Alan Dowd passed away this past October.
As he navigates the recent loss of his father, the eloquent and reflective Dowd is leaning not only on his own brothers, but also on the many brothers he has within the Washington locker room.
Dowd bucked some incredible odds to reach the NHL as a native of Alabama, just the third player in League history to come from that state. He was a Hobey Baker Award finalist in his senior season at St. Cloud St. in Minnesota where he majored in bio medicine, and he was eventually a seventh-round draft choice (198th overall) of the Los Angeles Kings in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft.
Before Dowd reached the NHL in 2015, only two Alabama-born players – Aud Tuten and Jared Ross – had ever played in the NHL, and each played parts of just two seasons. The two played a combined total of 52 games in the NHL.
Dowd didn’t really have local hockey heroes to look up to, but after moving to Alabama from England, his parents got their boys into hockey. The older boys forged a path for Dowd to follow in the Huntsville Amateur Hockey Association (HAHA). And before he reached his 10th birthday, the NHL placed an NHL franchise in Nashville, just three hours from Dowd’s home.
When Dowd signed with Washington as an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2018, he was the only new member of a team that just won its first Stanley Cup championship, and he came to the Caps as a 28-year-old with just 131 games worth of NHL experience with the Kings and Vancouver. He was very much a fringe NHL player at the time, battling another 28-year-old right-handed pivot – Jayson Megna – for the fourth-line center role left vacant when Jay Beagle departed the District, signing a four-year deal with the Canucks.
Dowd’s first contract with the Caps was a one-year deal that paid him $650,000, the League minimum for that season. It was a “show me” deal for a player who had averaged 11:34 per night with nine goals and 26 points scattered across his first three seasons in the NHL.
Now in his eighth season with Washington and on his fourth contract with the team, Dowd has more than shown them; he has become a fixture here with the Caps, a beloved and dependable teammate and part of the team’s leadership group.
Since arriving in Washington, he has made himself into one of the top shutdown/defensive centers in the NHL, and only Alex Ovechkin and John Carlson have played more games in a Caps’ sweater across that span. He is a poster boy for the Caps’ magnetic culture, one that makes players want to stay in DC once they get a taste of the area and playing here, and he and wife Paige started their family here.
Early in his first season with Washington, Dowd’s dad was on the team’s Mentors’ Trip when his son scored the second and third goals of his tenure with the Caps, one in each game. This year’s Mentors’ Trip is the first in which Dowd’s dad isn’t here to join the team on the trip; Josh is along for this year’s journey. Both Josh and Matt Dowd have been along for previous Mentors’ Trip, looking after their dad on the trip so that Nic can concentrate on hockey.
Prior to this year’s trip opener in Chicago on Friday night, Josh Dowd delivered an all-time epic lineup read that quickly went viral for its intensity and its hilarity.
It’s noteworthy that the six starters for Washington that night – Nic Dowd and linemates Anthony Beauvillier and Ethen Frank, defensemen Martin Fehervary and John Carlson, and goaltender Logan Thompson – were among the Caps’ six best players in that game, a 5-1 victory.
All five skaters were on the scoresheet, Dowd with an assist, Beauvillier and Frank with goals, both blueliners with a pair of assists, and Thompson with a typically terrific performance in the crease.
Josh Dowd’s impassioned read certainly seemed to have the desired effect, and on Saturday afternoon in Nashville, we sat down with Nic to get his thoughts on that lineup reading, and what this trip means to the brothers Dowd, three months after the passing of their father.
In response to that one question, Dowd delivered an emotional and impassioned monologue of over eight minutes in length. It’s reproduced here in its entirety.
“I think for me personally, there's a lot of bittersweet that goes into this trip for my family. My brother Josh touched on it two days ago, before we flew out. And he was like, ‘This is kind of a tough trip for me,’ and I'm talking to him about it. And he used to bring my dad on this trip a couple years ago. And we call it the Mentors’ Trip, but it's also called the fathers’ trip, right? And they're kind of interchangeable. For me, to look around and not have my dad here is tough. And then I think for my brother Josh, too, to be the replacement, is tough, and in Nashville, too.
“When I grew up, every Christmas or birthday, we got a present to come watch the Nashville Predators with my dad. And it was mainly just me, because my brothers were so much older than me that at the time; where when I was seven, eight, nine, 10, they were, 17 and 19, you know, 21 and 23, so they were off doing their own thing.
“So, I spent a lot of my younger years planning trips to come up here with my dad to watch the Detroit Red Wings and the Colorado Avalanche and these high quality teams play Nashville, and we'd always get to sit in lower bowl and in the corner, and my dad and I would just get to watch the game together. So, Nashville has always held a special spot in my heart with Bridgestone [Arena]. And I grew up playing a lot of hockey here as a youth hockey player.
“But I think specifically to this trip, I’m not quite sure if there is one big man upstairs that’s pulling all the strings or what. I definitely believe everything is connected in some way or another, and what you put into this life is what you get out of it; if you treat people well, good things are bound to happen to you. Life can give you a lot of bad and shitty situations, but in the end, I definitely feel like if you’re a good person and you do the right things, life is going to come back to you in a positive way.
“And I think this trip, there is just so much energy that surrounds it. I think with the dads, it’s hard not to feel like a little kid again, and you get to spend time with your dad. And being that I have a son and a daughter now too, you can really understand the pride that these dads have when they look at their sons.
“I told Murray McMichael the other day, we were at the bar having a beer together, and his son is relatively young, Mikey. He’s not a rookie in the League by any means; Mikey is one of our best players in my opinion, and he is going to play for a long time. But I’m talking to Murray, and dad to dad, I feel like I’m so much older than Mikey at this point. And I’m talking to Murray, and I’m like, ‘How cool is it that you get to watch your son play in the NHL?’
“And I told him, ‘I would retire today, if it guaranteed that I could watch [my son] Louie play one game in the NHL as a dad.’ And listening to him talk, his words were, he couldn’t be more proud that his son is doing what he loves to do, but also, that he sees our team and how close we are, and he sees that Mikey is surrounded by such good people that care about him.
“And I know that my dad is really proud when he looks down on us – wherever he is – knowing that I have such good friends that are around me, and that my brother is comfortable enough to be who he is to the core around people who he just met. And I think that speaks a lot to our group. Groups that can be comfortable around each other and be who they really are, those are the people that are going to win and have success. And when you can elevate people to truly just wear their heart on their sleeve and not hold back, you’ve got something really special.
“This group, the energy is awesome. I just love how you come into the game [Friday] after we win, and all the dads are in the locker room and all the dads are fired up, and it’s the most genuine that you’re ever going to get in your whole life. Your dad, and the guys in there – the mentors and the dads – are truly happy for the success of their kids, and you don’t find that often in life, you know?
“Even for us, we play, we’re constantly compared to other people, where our contracts are compared and it’s all about money. Very rarely are you a part of a team that you don’t have individuals that are caring about individual success. And then you get to be part of a weekend where none of that makes a difference, you know, because the dads are all here. And they put so much work into getting their kids to this point in their careers – like, no one understands that.
“I have a kid that’s barely scratching the surface of hockey, and getting up at 7:30 on a Saturday morning to take your kid to hockey is a grind, and these guys did it for 15-plus years to get their kid to the NHL, to give them that opportunity. And there was no guarantee that they were even going to pan out. And so, now that we’re here, they can finally get to sit back and relax and enjoy kind of the fruits of their labor that they went through as dads. And again, my brother gets to watch his brother do something that he’s in love with, and I have a career that I’m proud of, and I get to play a game. And these dads are the same way, right?
“They get to sit up there and there’s no other distractions. The families aren’t around, the wives aren’t around, and they get to come here and have beers and sit in the suite and watch their kids play. And no one cares who scored; it’s just all about our team winning. People are happy, the dads are happy. Josh Dowd is happy that [Anthony] Beauvillier scored, and Beauvillier’s dad is happy for [Ethen Frank’s] dad, and it’s one of the most genuine experiences that I’ve come across in sports – we’re genuinely happy that other people are having success. And that’s tough to find in this world, in my opinion.
“And being a dad myself, I would kill to be in that situation as an older dad when my son grows up. I think it’s just filled with a lot of pride and a lot of emotion. And people look forward to this for the whole year, and as you get older, there are not a lot of things that you can look forward to. Your son and daughter are out of the house and you’re an empty nester, and this is one of those things where I get to feel like a kid again, surrounded by a bunch of dads. And our dads get to feel like dads again. When you’re younger and your kids are younger, you really have a purpose in life, right? Like, okay, I’ve got to take care of my kids, I’ve got to provide for my family, I’m changing diapers, I’m playing mini sticks. I’m doing something every day.
“At no point in your life will you ever be needed more than when your kids are little. And then you get to come on this trip, and you’re kind of needed again. It’s great. So, it’s a special, special trip.”
On Saturday evening in Nashville, the three Dowd brothers and their mom got together in Nashville where they had shared time together previously, and they went to dinner together. The family typically made the trip together from Huntsville to Nashville to proudly watch Nic play whenever he was in town.
“It’s been an interesting trip for us, for the Dowds, for sure,” says Dowd. “I think last time we were here, my brother pointed out, he was like, ‘Oh, did you know two years ago when we came here, this is where we ate when we came to watch the game in Nashville when we came with dad? And I was in the restaurant just now grabbing a cup of coffee, and I looked over and we were sitting at that table right there.’ It’s a unique experience.”
Alan Dowd spent his life taking care of his family, and he spent his working life taking care of people. It must be gratifying to him that his youngest son is in the good hands and hearts of his teammates and coaches who love and care for him as well.
“I’ve thought about that, too, just on this trip,” says Dowd. “When I get older, I can only hope that my son (whose middle name is Alan, after his grandfather), has the people that surround me, and that they also surround him, because I think guys take it for granted. This League is so hard, and we’re always so worried about performance. And it’s on a night-to-night basis.
“One night, you can be the man. And the next night, you can feel like you’re going to get traded, or cut, or sent down or whatever. And it just happens so quickly that it’s easy to forget that we’re so fortunate – especially our team, especially our team – to have this built in group. You know that among all 23 you can probably find someone who has experienced something that you’re going through. To have those guys to lean on has been something that is a lifesaver for me, to have hockey to turn to and to have a purpose in life, that I could have other guys take care of me at times.”
