Bowness relives draft day

BRAMPTON, Ont. – While it´s easy to see why Ryan Bowness would consider June 24 – the day he was chosen in the eighth round of the NHL draft by the Columbus Blue Jackets – to be "probably the best day of my life", it would also be easy to understand why he might consider the previous evening to be one of the longest nights of his life.
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Bowness´ roommate in South Florida that Saturday night was Battalion winger Adam Henrich, who had traveled to the draft with his family. Henrich, who is eligible for next year´s draft in Toronto, was also the Bowness family´s official draft day photographer.
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"I think Adam got nine more hours of sleep that night than I did!" said Bowness the other day from his family´s summer home in Halifax.
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Bowness´ name was not on the NHL´s final Central Scouting Service list of North American skaters, but he decided to make the trip after talking to Battalion scout Andrew Shaw at the team´s recent Mini Camp.
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"(Going to the draft) was a topic of conversation in our house for a couple of months," Bowness said. "We just needed some interest to come up and Andrew Shaw, who scouts for Columbus and the Battalion, told me at the Mini Camp that Columbus had me pretty high on their list. We had heard there was some interest from other teams, but once we heard that, we decided to get the ticket and go."
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Bowness, who scored 15 points in 52 games in his rookie season in Brampton, wasn´t sure what to expect as he headed into the National Car Rental Centre for the first day of the draft. "My dad (Rick, a former NHL player and currently an assistant coach for the Phoenix Coyotes) has been going to the draft for 25 years but this was my first one," he explained. "It´s completely different from what you see on TV. There is such a buzz in the building and it´s hard to explain. You see all the players and all the families and everyone´s nervous and sitting on the edge of their seats. It´s a great experience to go through."
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Bowness added that he "went on the first day and just sat in the stands. I didn´t even wear a suit. I enjoyed all the trades and everything else that was going on. It was great to see (Battalion teammates) Jay Harrison and Jay McClement get drafted. We just sat there on the first day with an open mind because we didn´t really know what to expect. We had heard that Columbus and a few other teams were interested."
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Bowness returned to the arena for the second day of the draft and said he spent some time talking to his dad "about what we do if I wasn´t drafted. We were just preparing for the worst. A million things go through your mind when you are sitting there. It was one of the most nerve-racking things you will ever live through."
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When asked how his dad felt on draft day, Bowness said he came to the draft "as a father not as a coach. He sat with me the whole time and he didn´t even go down to the Coyotes table. The Coyotes understood that. Coaches at the draft don´t have much input anyway. He said he would have just been sitting at the table listening to what was going on."
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Bowness, whose draft day support team also included Phoenix Coyotes head coach Bob Francis and former Montreal Canadiens bench boss Alain Vigneault, said "when the seventh and eighth rounds came around, I started to get nervous and when I heard ´Columbus selects from the Brampton Battalion…´ my head kind of popped up. My dad and I were going nuts sitting there but once you hear your name called, all the nerves disappear into the best feeling you´ll ever have.
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"When you hear your name, everything happens so fast after that," Bowness continued. A cell phone company was running a promotion that allowed draftees to call anyone in the world. Bowness took advantage of it and ended up getting his picture in the paper the next day as he called his mother and grandmother with his Blue Jackets jersey on.
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"They take you to this place where you can call anyone in the world so I called my mom and my grandmother," he explained. "There was a Russian kid with me and there was a lady there snapping pictures."
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Bowness became the second Battalion player drafted by the Blue Jackets, who selected defenceman Rostislav Klesla with the fourth overall pick in last year´s draft in Calgary. The Jackets had a fine expansion season in the NHL, compiling a 28-39-9-6 record, which left them tied with the Chicago BlackHawks and only one point behind the New York Rangers in the overall standings.
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"My dad and I have heard nothing but good things about the Columbus organization," said Bowness, "and I´m really happy to be a part of it. Going in I was hoping that Columbus would be one of the teams that would consider me and luckily it worked. (General Manager) Doug MacLean runs a first-class operation there."
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Bowness will leave on Wednesday for Columbus, where he will be able to hook up with Klesla and Sarnia Sting defenceman Scott Heffernan, who Bowness knows from his days in Kanata, Ont. Heffernan was picked by Columbus in the fifth round of last year´s draft.
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"They are flying in all their draft picks and Klesla is going to be there," We´ll be there for four days and they are going to check our conditioning. We´ll do some skating and they will introduce us to the city."
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