Edmonton Oilers: See hockey’s always been with me as long as I could remember. Right from birth, I was absorbed into hockey and its culture, being named after Ryan Smyth himself. While I was growing up, I idolised him, Imagining that I was him while I First learned to skate.
I probably had never cried as much as 9-year-old me did when he was traded. I remember pretending I was sick from school the next day because I was just that broken up about it.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t old enough to understand what was going on during the cup run in ’06 so I don’t have many memories of it.