Rick Bowness is in Toronto for the second time in as many weeks, this time though it’s not to face the Maple Leafs with the Winnipeg Jets.
Bowness is in the Ontario capital for the NHL All-Star Game, his first ever All-Star weekend.
Not only is he there along with Kyle Connor and Connor Hellebuyck, but Bowness also has his wife Judy and son Ryan attending as well. Another chance for father and son to have dinner together, just like they did the night before the Jets and Sens faced one another in Kanata on January 21.
“You know it’s fun, I know people make a bigger deal out of it than it really is but it’s just father and son getting together. Really its father and grandkids getting together because he’s more excited to see my two kids than he is me obviously,” said Ryan on the Ground Control podcast.
“You know what? We enjoy those times. We don’t get to see each other often, so anytime you do you have to take as much advantage of it as you can. We’re a pretty tight knit family from top to bottom.”
Ryan has a brother and a sister and as you can imagine, hockey is often brought up in conversation when the whole family is together.
“We try to make a concerted effort not to talk about it. But it automatically just gravitates back towards it. I think my mom and sister get pretty annoyed with us sometimes and have to change the subject. But it’s just the nature of the beast,” said Ryan.
“An occupational hazard you could say. It’s such a big part of who we are and who we were growing up. It’s the only life we’ve ever known as kids. So, there’s times where we look at each other and go ‘hey, it’s time to change the subject’, but it’s all part of it.”
Since Rick arrived in Winnipeg, he has been working hard to get the Jets players and coaches to buy into being a family. Certainly, it has shown throughout the 2023-24 season with Winnipeg near the top of the standings and being talked about as a Stanley Cup contender. To the Bowness clan, these family values are a staple of their lives.
“A lot of the credit goes to my mom. Anyone who knows our family knows there was five of us growing up and there was one MVP and that was my mother. She instilled out values in us. People forget growing up when you have a father who works in the business, he’s on the road half the year,” said Ryan.
“Mom’s at home taking care of all three of us and taking us to school and our activities and everything. She’s the absolute glue that holds us together. She instilled all those values in us, and she deserves all the credit for that because you know we moved around a lot growing up. The one thing we knew was that home was wherever our family was.”
Ryan and Rick have a ton of connections as father and son, but they also have connections to the two franchises they work for. Ryan is the current associate general manager of the Senators, while Rick was the hired as first ever head coach when Ottawa was awarded an expansion franchise back in 1992.
“Listen my best childhood memories were going to the rink with my dad on Saturday mornings. I was very fortunate that I had a dad that really wanted to include his kids and everything. I really didn’t give him much of a choice, I was always waiting for him at the door Saturday morning. Riding to the rink with him, I’d always help the trainers. This is the only life I’ve ever known but again fortunate that he’d allow me to do that growing up and it’s probably help transition me to what I do today. We look at him in a different lens, he’s dad. He’s not a coach in our eyes,” said Ryan.
“When I talk about my best childhood memories it was Ottawa. We were here for four years; I was nine to 13 years of age. It was pretty primary part of your childhood that you think back on. A lot of my best friends in the world still live in this city to this day. The Ottawa Senators franchise, obviously with him being the first ever coach here meant a lot to us growing up as a family. To be able to come back here with my family now and re-establish some of those roots and being able to pass on some of my old memories to my family now and teach them about some of the things growing up here has been amazing.”
The connection continues through the Jets, Ryan came to the Manitoba capital when the Atlanta Thrashers relocated to Winnipeg in 2011. There was excitement throughout the Bowness family in July of 2022 when Rick was hired as head coach of the Jets.
“It was awesome. First of all, we were young when he was here before, but I actually moved back in 2011 from Atlanta with the team so I experienced living in the city in between them coming back. Obviously had relationships with management, the staff and Mark Chipman and Chevy (Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff, Larry (Simmons) and Zinger (Jets assistant GM Craig Heisinger),” said Ryan.
“So, to have him come back after all these years and work there from my parents point of view, how much they enjoyed their time in Winnipeg before and to see them go back and again re-establish some of those relationships. They love the city; they love the family atmosphere that is created by the Jets organization and that’s kind of who they are and its helped them ultimately be where they are today.”
While Ryan will be happy to see his dad in Toronto this weekend, it doesn’t compare to the excitement that his three-year-old son, Brendan will have to see his favourite person in the world.
“He follows him around wherever he goes when he’s there. To see that bond between my son and my dad is something special that I really cherish every time we’re together,” said Ryan.
“But like I said earlier, you have to enjoy those times because they are few and far between when you work in the industry like we do but we enjoy them.”
