How hockey helped Toronto Sceptres coach Troy Ryan find a way out of poverty

As he waited at a gate to enter the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony in 2022, Troy Ryan's mind flashed back to the people who helped him get here.

There was the teacher back in Spryfield, N.S., who told Ryan he wouldn't give him a passing grade unless he signed up for all the sports at school, knowing it would keep him out of trouble.

His mother, who always found a way to help Ryan raise the money to play sports, and taught him the value of hard work. Along with his sister — the most consistent person in his life.

The minor hockey coach who taught him how to put shingles on a roof, exchanging the labour for the cost of Ryan's hockey school fees.

The friends' parents who had him over for supper or drove him to hockey practice.

And the friend who convinced him to tag along to the University of New Brunswick to try out for the hockey team three decades earlier, when Ryan figured he'd stay in Halifax and find work at a sports store.

Ryan walks off the ice after a defeat against United States in a women's Rivalry Series game in November. (Tony Avelar/The Associated Press)

All played a role in getting Ryan to the Olympics, where he'd lead the Canadian women's national team to a gold medal as its head coach. He thought of them watching at home, pointing him out on TV as the Canadians came into frame.

"You just kind of shake your head and just try to appreciate it as much as you can," Ryan said. "And remember a lot of the people along the way that just because you get to go there, they all probably feel a little bit more part of it."

Ryan will lead the Canadian women's team into another Olympics in 2026, this time in Milano-Cortina, Italy.

He's also head coach of the PWHL's Toronto Sceptres, and the opportunity to be part of that league from the ground floor, knowing the work that went into creating it, isn't lost on him. He was more emotional to be part of the league's first game last year than he was at the Olympic gold-medal final.

"It doesn't mean they're not both special," he said. "There's a lot more heavy emotion with this league. It's not just hockey. There's obviously the sacrifices that so many women made to make this league possible."

Hockey was his ticket out of poverty in Spryfield, introducing him to things he never would have seen and experienced otherwise. Whenever he needs perspective, he thinks about how money almost stopped him from playing the sport he loves. Now, it pays his mortgage.

"It's a very blue-collar, hard-working district of Halifax where if you're going to come out on top, it's going to be because you're going to work harder than the other people and you're going to have more perseverance than the person beside you," said Portland Winterhawks GM Mike Johnston, who is from Dartmouth, N.S., and coached Ryan at the University of New Brunswick.

"That's what he had. He had the work ethic and he had the perseverance. Nothing was given to him."

But it almost didn't happen.

A hope and a tryout

It was the summer of 1993, and Chris Nadeau was preparing to move to Fredericton from Halifax to play hockey at UNB. His buddy, Ryan, threw him a going away party.

The pair met playing junior hockey. Nadeau was drawn to Ryan's easygoing personality off the ice. On the ice, he was a great teammate, someone who would do whatever it took to stay in the lineup.

"Coming from Spryfield, he has a background where I'm sure there were times in his life that he knew there was adversity and he found ways to work hard and get out of it," Nadeau said. "I think that kind of came with him on the ice as well."

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After finding out his friend didn't have any plans after junior hockey, Nadeau convinced him to pack a duffel bag and come to Fredericton with him to try to get a tryout with UNB. University hadn't been on Ryan's radar, but he figured he'd give it a shot.

He borrowed Nadeau's brother's shirt and tie to meet Johnston. The coach told him Ryan could come to the tryout. The odds were slim. The team had already been picked, and no one really made it as a walk on.

But at the tryout, Johnston immediately noticed how hard he was working.

"He was just non-stop energy as a player," Johnston said. "Kind of a real gritty, character-type of guy."

Ryan also had to register for school. He hadn't applied to university and his grades weren't high enough to get in. He was accepted as a mature student under academic probation.

His plans hit a snag when Ryan got cut from the team. Afterward, he went back to Nadeau's house to pack up. With no car or money, he figured he'd hitchhike home to Nova Scotia — until Nadeau sat beside Johnston at a team event and talked to the coach about his friend.

When he heard Ryan wasn't planning on staying in school, Johnston felt the young man was making a mistake. The next day, Johnston asked him to meet.

"I remember the exact conversation," Ryan said. "He was like, you don't have a stall, you don't have a jersey. You're just here to practise."

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That turned into a full-time roster spot, a chance at an education, and an introduction to Johnston. Seeing how he carried himself, and the structure and detail he brought to the rink, gave Ryan a new perspective on coaching.

"I probably wouldn't have started coaching if I never had Mike as a coach," he said.

Learning to build a program

Ryan's coaching journey started by helping out with the women's club team at UNB. But it would be years before Ryan would find his way back to coaching women's hockey.

In between, he coached men's junior hockey and university hockey across Atlantic Canada, including head coaching stints with Acadia University and St. Thomas University.

After leaving St. Thomas, Ryan had the opportunity to coach a major junior team. But another former coach advised him to make sure he was calculated about the coaching jobs he accepted. He told him to make sure he picked a place that would appreciate what he did and how he did it.

Ryan coached junior and university hockey across the Maritimes. He's seen above coaching the St. Thomas University men's team in Fredericton. (Shane Magee/CBC)

That place ended up being Campbellton, a small New Brunswick city along the Quebec border that's home to around 7,000 people.

As head coach, general manager and president of the Campbellton Tigers, a team in the Maritime Junior Hockey League, Ryan's job went beyond the rink. He billeted some of the players and worked with the community to raise money for the team. He was able to build the program from scratch, with the trust of the city that hired him to do it.

Looking back, he said it was the best decision he could have made.

"A lot of people outside of my little bubble thought I was crazy to accept a job in Campbellton, New Brunswick and not the major junior job," Ryan said. "But it allowed me just to take some pride in building a program."

Coaching for his country

It was in Campbellton that Ryan began coaching on the women's side.

He coached two of his former Sceptres players, CJ Jackson and Allie Munroe, with Team Nova Scotia at the Canada Games in 2015. Around the same time, he became an assistant coach with the senior national team.

He became head coach in 2021, leading the Canadians to three world championships and Olympic gold. It's the type of success the women's national team hadn't witnessed for several years, after several losses to the Americans at the world championships and at the 2018 Olympics.

Ryan became head coach of the senior national women's team in 2021. He'll continue to coach the team through the next Olympics in 2026. (Tony Avelar/Associated Press)

In Toronto, he's driven by seeing the group he helped build from scratch be rewarded with a championship.

"They come every day and put the work in. The environment, the culture matters to them. They invest their time. The time that fans get to see on ice is a fraction of what actually goes on behind the scenes to make it all possible," Ryan said.

"You want to be part of a group that can make that all come together."

Toronto finished first in the PWHL standings last year, rattling off an 11-game win streak, buoyed by an MVP performance from Natalie Spooner and stellar goaltending from Kristen Campbell. In addition to his players, Ryan was recognized at the league's awards ceremony last year as the PWHL's top coach.

But the team hasn't met its goal yet. Toronto was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by Minnesota, which went on to win the Walter Cup.

Going into Saturday's game at Scotiabank Arena against the New York Sirens, the Sceptres sit last in the league with 11 points. You can watch Saturday's game at 2 p.m. ET on CBC Gem, CBC TV and CBCSports.ca.

Even though the results haven't shown in the standings, Ryan felt his team had a turning point after Christmas.

Despite the Sceptres sitting at the bottom of the PWHL standings, Ryan sees a progression in his team's performance since the beginning of the campaign. (Toronto Sceptres/X)

Speaking before Wednesday's 4-1 loss to Boston, the coach said he saw a lot of things to like about his team's performance this year. He thought they played better than they did at times during last year's 11-game winning streak.

"I don't know if I just have a different perspective over the years, but I don't get too caught up in losing those types of games," Ryan said.

"You get frustrated because you want them to be rewarded. But one thing we talked a lot about last year is there's a difference between winning deep versus winning shallow. Sometimes losing deep is the first step you need to take before you win properly."

That perspective comes from the journey, from Spryfield, to UNB, to small-town New Brunswick, and all the way to the Olympics, always knowing he would find a way.

Back on the east coast, the friend who convinced him to try for a spot on the UNB team loves watching his friend do what he loves.

"It just shows that when you really love something and want to learn how to get a little bit better at that skill or craft, [you can do it] if you have the passion and the energy and the desire and you're willing to fight through some adversity and take some rejections along the way," Nadeau said.

"Troy definitely symbolizes that."