Rockets announce leadership group for 2024-25 season, name Max Graham captain
Kelowna, B.C. – The Kelowna Rockets have announced their leadership group for the 2024-25 campaign.
Twenty-year-old forward Max Graham has been named the 29th captain in franchise history with defenceman Caden Price and forwards Tij Iginla and Andrew Cristall named assistant captains.
“We’re excited and pleased to have Max Graham as our captain for the 2024-25 season,” said Rockets President and General Manager Bruce Hamilton. “He is a fearless leader who leads by example.”
Graham, who was an assistant captain for the club the past two seasons was recently returned to the Rockets from the National Hockey League’s New Jersey Devils.
“It’s definitely a big honour. I’ve played here for four seasons now and I’m from Kelowna too,” Graham said. “To be able to be honoured as a captain for your hometown team and a team that you’ve been with for so long is definitely a great feeling.”
“I think we’ve got a great group in this room and I’m really excited to be named their captain. But we’ve got so many different leaders in that room with and without letters, so I think they’re going to make my job pretty easy this year and I’m definitely looking forward to it.”
Having grown up in the area and following the Rockets as a kid, Graham said he never could’ve imagined he one day would be captaining the team he grew up watching.
“No, never. Truthfully, I’d never even imagined that I could even play for this team one day, let alone be named captain,” Graham said. “It’s definitely unreal. I get lots of my family members coming out to every game and this is my last season here. I know we’re off to a pretty slow start, but I think we’re going to have that turned around really quick here. Definitely not something that I ever thought would happen, but now that it has, it’s awesome.”
How would Graham describe his leadership style?
“I’m kind of a guy that tries to lead by example with actions. I go out every shift and I try to play the right way … play hard, physical, stick up for my teammates. So that’s the main way that I lead. But I think the last few years as an assistant captain, I’ve been working on lots more vocal leadership within the dressing room,” he said.
“Being there for each other and holding people accountable if that needs to happen and pumping people up and trying to give them more confidence if I see that they’re struggling a little bit. That’s something that I have been working on and I think being an older guy now, that part of me has come a long way. Obviously, I can still continue to get better at it and I’m going to work every day to get better at it this year, but I think it’s something that I’ve really improved on and that’s I guess another leadership quality that I have.”
Graham said the first people he’ll be telling the news to will be his family, which extends to siblings and grandparents.
I haven’t been able to talk to them yet but I’m going to text my mom and dad right away,” he said. “They’ll be pretty excited, pretty proud. To be selected as a captain is a great honour and it shows that there’s other people out there that are happy with the person that I am and the character that I bring to the team and my character is built completely off my parents and their personality traits.”
“I think they’ll be pretty proud of what they’ve been able to raise as a son. So, they’ll be the first two people I tell and then probably tell my sister … she’s away in Minnesota playing hockey right now and my grandparents will be pretty excited too.”
Joining Graham on the Rockets leadership group is returning assistant captain Andrew Cristall, along with first time assistant captains Caden Price and Tij Iginla.
“That’s obviously a pretty good core, both for our team and in this league,” Cristall said. “We’ve got to be the guys pushing the load every night and kind of showing the younger players how to play and then what to do on the ice and hopefully that leads to more wins. It’s a pretty good group for sure.”
Cristall added that he was extremely pleased for Graham to be named the team captain.
“Yeah, it’s awesome. He’s a guy you like to go to war with because he’ll do anything for his teammates,” Cristall said. “Whether it’s getting physical, protecting his teammates, putting up points … he can kind of do it all. He’s a really good leader and we’re happy to have him.”
Graham will debut with the ‘C’ Friday night when the Rockets host the Portland Winterhawks in the ‘Paint The Rink Pink’ game in support of Canadian Cancer night.
Tickets for Friday’s game, as well as all other Rockets games, are available at Select Your Tickets. Puck drop will go at 7:05 PM.
Tickets can be purchased:
- Online at selectyourtickets.com
- By calling Select Your Tickets at 250-762-5050
- Or by visiting the Select Your Tickets box office at the Prospera Place box office. The box office is open 10:00 a.m. to 4:00p.m. Monday through Friday and opens at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday home game days.
To learn more about single-game tickets click here.
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