As September rolls on, more and more players from the Winnipeg Jets are arriving in the Manitoba capital. Adam Lowry got into town last week after an eventful summer for him and his girlfriend, Laura.
“My summer was fantastic, I spent most of it in Calgary. It was busy, we had a lot of weddings but sometimes it’s great to get together with childhood friends, friends from junior, Laura’s friends to celebrate them,” said Lowry.
“You see people that you don’t get to see too often, got on the golf course to work on my game, didn’t help. Our summer was great. I’m really glad to be back in Winnipeg and getting this year underway.”
Before Lowry fully focuses on getting ready for training camp though, he was at the official opening of the new Toba Centre for Children and Youth on Tuesday afternoon. The beautiful new facility is located at Assiniboine Park. Lowry has been an ambassador for the Toba Centre since 2022 after meeting Executive Director Christy Dzikowicz.
“From the first conversation with Christy and just feeling her passion and energy behind the project and the need for a new centre, you couldn’t help wanting to get on board, help and lend your voice. That’s kind of what made it so attractive to me to get involved with someone like Christy and the Toba Centre,” said Lowry.
“It creates so much positive change and with the new centre they will be able to create even more change and impact so many children’s lives positively to help them get back on the path to recover from the trauma that they’ve gone through.”
Toba Centre is a place to restore the health and wellbeing of those affected by child abuse through a coordinated, community response. You can understand why Lowry and True North Sports and Entertainment wanted to get behind this centre and the services that it provides for youth in Manitoba.
“The relationship with Adam and the Jets has been huge. This is an issue that’s not talked about or hasn’t been talked about and now we have our community talking about it and it takes it out of the shadows. The shadows is where abuse thrives,” said Dzikowicz.
“So, to have somebody like Adam, the Winnipeg Jets stand up and say, ‘we’re going to talk about this issue, we’re going to celebrate the strength and the resiliency of these kids that go through it’ and become a part of that, it’s really eye opening for people I think and its opening the conversation way more broadly then we could have done on our own.”
The new location has all the services children need under one roof and it’s in a great location. Lowry said he was speechless the first time he walked into the new building.
“It’s such a surreal setting when you go from their previous location on Portage, to now being surrounded by Assiniboine forest. Kind of feeling the impact they are going to be able to have the centre fully integrated with different resources, whether it’s the police services, the health services, the counsellors, allowing the kids to go through the process all in one place to really like I said earlier to start their path to healing,” said Lowry.
“You enter the front door, you can kind of feel like this is the place for change and it’s going to have such a positive impact not only in the Winnipeg community but throughout the province of Manitoba.”
Dzikowicz said that she is happy the new centre is open but was clear that everyone that was involved in getting the building done stay the course as everyone still has critical roles to play. Lowry understands that he and True North Sports and Entertainment will remain a big part of the support group going forward at Toba Centre.
“With the centre opening there are so many more opportunities to interact with the kids, hear their stories and try and provide support. I think with these things, they are such private matters. It’s something that is going to change case by case, day-to-day but any opportunity that I can make the Toba Centre visible,” said Lowry.
“We have another great event coming up in October where the Jets and True North have been supportive. Offering a night, that again will be in October (Child Advocacy Game, October 24th vs. St. Louis) during National Child Abuse Prevention month. Things like that, with the centre opening, the work doesn’t stop. We are going to continue to try to raise as much money as we can so that we can impact positively as many kids lives as we can.”
As mentioned earlier, Lowry has already been on the ice skating in town and has met two of his new teammates Gabe Vilardi and Alex Iafallo. Two of the three players the Jets got in the trade with Los Angeles in the Pierre-Luc Dubois trade.
