The 30-year-old learned that he’d be named captain on Saturday, a couple of days before Tuesday’s press conference at Canada Life Centre. The offer from general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff and head coach Rick Bowness came after Bowness’ numerous conversations with players in the room.
Ultimately, Cheveldayoff made the final call, but he says the collaborative process was thorough and went through most of the summer.
“I can’t emphasize enough the importance of the process we went through and how tough it was,” Cheveldayoff said. “As easy as it is to say Adam obviously deserves this, we have a lot of deserving candidates in that room. The leadership group with Josh (Morrissey) and (Mark Scheifele) are going to be invaluable. It’s going to be a greater leadership group as well. One thing we started to incorporate here is the inclusiveness of everybody, this is everybody’s team.”
That mentality, that everyone has a voice in the room, was the goal of not having a captain in the 2022-23 season. Bowness felt that season, with Lowry wearing an ‘A’ for the first time in his professional hockey career along with alternate captains Scheifele and Morrissey, accomplished just that.
“I knew last year when we did this that the probability was we were going to name a captain this year, that we wouldn't let it go too long,” Bowness said. “So there's one guy going to wear the C. And the benefit is that he has all the respect of everybody in the room, and the league. Which a few of our guys do. But Adam's a tough, tough kid. He's a great competitor. And we just figured it was time to name him as captain and see where it goes.”
Lowry is about to begin his 10th season as a member of the Jets. In that time, he’s played 621 games, scoring 93 goals and accumulating 204 points.
Despite his strong finish to last season – scoring four times in the best-of-seven series with the Vegas Golden Knights – he knows he won’t be competing for the Rocket Richard trophy, but he will compete for his teammates.
No matter what that looks like.
“Part of what makes me a successful hockey player is playing hard, is competing, is trying to drag my teammates into the fight and sticking up for them and standing up for them on the ice and in the room,” said Lowry. “I think just trying to find ways to impact the game, trying to find ways to kind of influence the game in a positive manner is the way I’m going to continue to try and play.”
The honour of being a captain in a Canadian market isn’t one to be taken lightly, and Lowry knows that. He says he plans to have conversations with former Jets captains Andrew Ladd and Blake Wheeler, as well as Jason Jaffray – who wore the ‘C’ during Lowry’s time with the American Hockey League’s St. John’s IceCaps.
“I've been fortunate to have a lot of great mentors and to play under a lot of great leaders,” he said. “I think there's a lot that I did learn and I can learn from them, handling different situations and things like that. I think both of them (Ladd and Wheeler) are such passionate people, they did so much for the community, they were so involved in making Winnipeg a better place to live.”
With the support of five of his teammates in attendance (Mason Appleton, Morgan Barron, Nate Schmidt, Neal Pionk, and Dylan DeMelo) - and long-time friend and fellow 2011 draftee Scheifele (who was out of town at the time of the conference), and Morrissey – who told the Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun that the Jets “couldn’t have made a better choice” at the NHL Media Tour in Vegas on Tuesday, Lowry is ready to tackle this season head on.
He says he wants his teammates to have as big of a voice in the room as before, and will lean on Scheifele and Morrissey as “vital parts” of the leadership group, as the group tries to embark on a successful season.
For now, he’ll enjoy making the phone calls to his family and friends to celebrate, even if they don’t go as smoothly as the press conference’s jersey hand-off.
“The FaceTime to my mom and seeing her reaction, and just seeing how proud she was. It was extremely special,” he said. “I actually talked to my brother in law first. It just kind of happened we were on Facetime when I was getting home. But I was calling my mom just assuming that she would be with my dad but my dad was at the college football game in Seattle, so I had to talk to him a little later. My mom, she was back at home, so it was a couple of nice phone calls to make.”
