Life and Sorrows of Bobby Ryan

Shortly before the turn of the millennium, Robert Shane Stevenson returned to New Jersey with his young California ice hockey team. He is a sturdy eleven-year-old boy with bright blue eyes and a touch of melancholy on his face. Old companions recognize him and say: “Hey, you’re Robert.” And Robert says, “No, you’re confusing me, my name is Bobby Ryan.” And she: “We ask you, we still have photo albums in there with you.”

Bobby Ryan, that’s the stage name that Robert Shane Stevenson received from his father Shane. Not because it just sounds better. But because he invented a new identity for the whole family and began a new life with it in El Segundo near Los Angeles Airport. Ryan, because he loved the Oscar-winning film “Saving Private Ryan”. And because he thought that this name would easily be used to forge the birth certificate.

That was his way to escape the police, who went to find him with some effort because he had beaten his wife Melody, Bobby’s mother, drunk and ready to go to hospital. After visiting a match with Bobby, a Philadelphia Flyers home game, Shane sat down in a bar and developed the pipe dream that Melody wanted to buy drugs. He lost control, almost beat her to death. She suffered head trauma and internal bleeding. Attempted murder, was the verdict.

The Swat team at the door

Melody forgave the bat, the couple stayed together, and traveled with the son after Shane found a new home in California that would allow Bobby, one of America’s most promising talents from a young age, to continue playing high-level ice hockey could play. The camouflage was only revealed when the father paid with the wrong credit card in a branch of Blockbuster-Video. A few days later, the Ryans’ home was stormed by a Swat team, and Shane wandered behind bars for years.

Which posed new problems for the family. The mother worked two jobs in order to be able to finance life. During the day in the ice rink so that Bobby didn’t have to pay an entrance fee. And in the evening at the airport, because she hoped that this would give him discounts with the airlines when another tournament was on the other side of the country. Mother and son were able to eat out twice a month, at California Pizza Kitchen, in the afternoon because there was a 2-for-1 promotion, Caesar salad and pizza at half price. They didn’t have to worry about the lesson times – Bobby didn’t go to school, but practically taught himself at home.

The efforts paid off: after a Canadian sports psychologist convinced him in 2005 not to abandon his career, Bobby Ryan became one of the world’s best ice hockey players: NHL All-Star, Olympic participation, total income of 67 million dollars. But his professional career also tells of rise and fall. In 2016, his mother Melody died of cancer. Bobby fell into alcohol addiction, sought therapy, and when he returned to the Ottawa Senators after weeks of absence, in February 2020, he scored a hat trick in the first game. The stadium honored him with an ovation, Ryan was so touched that Tears flowed.

That summer, the NHL awarded him the Masterton Trophy, a prize that recognizes “perseverance, dedication and fairness in and for ice hockey”. Ryan says he was rather uncomfortable with the honor: “First of all, I don’t think I should have won. Second, do you really want to be remembered for something like this? For alcoholism? Especially since it’s never really gone, you live with it every day. “

How do you manage that, since carefree use of alcohol is apparently inextricably linked with ice hockey culture, through sponsorship, beer crates in the cloakroom and extravagant team binge-drinking? Says Ryan: “In the NHL, many pros opened a beer for granted after playing on the plane. Then I made my story public and they acted weird because they felt guilty. But I made it clear to them that they don’t have to change. On the contrary: Nobody should limit themselves just because I cannot control myself. “

The Beijing option

It is Thursday, two days before Christmas, when Bobby Ryan utters these words. He’s standing at the Ambri-Piotta train station, baseball cap and flip-flops at zero degrees. A little irritated, he asks why everything is orphaned here, the hostels and restaurants in the weathered Leventina, this region where little of Swiss prosperity has arrived. Ryan ended up here by accident. In the fall he received no more contract with the Detroit Red Wings. And after weeks had passed without a request, he said to his agent: The Spengler Cup, that would be something, this traditional tournament that he had watched on television for years.

For what exactly was unclear: perhaps in preparation for an Olympic participation with the USA. Or as the end of your career. In any case, the Spengler Cup would have been a stage. Ryan, 34, should actually have played for HC Ambri-Piotta, then for “Bern Selection” before the tournament was canceled on Christmas Eve. Now it is not clear whether Bobby Ryan will be seen on the ice again, maybe it was, and he says quietly goodbye.

In the absence of alternatives, he invites to a chat in his rental car. The cold is biting and the jacket is thin, he says he has only packed one, he has been wearing it for seven winters because he is, well, rather economical. “There were years when my mother and I couldn’t rub two pennies together. That shapes it, ”he says. When she died, Bobby wrote her a public suicide note, there were lines full of admiration under the title “Dear Mom”. Among other things, Ryan thanked him for teaching him what it means to be a good parent. And which values ​​really count in life.

What does it mean to be a good parent, Bobby Ryan? Which values ​​count? What do you pass on to your son, to your daughter?

Ryan looks through the windshield at the deserted main street and says, “Decency and honesty. I want people to say about my children that they are the nicest children they have met. That they are decent to everyone, regardless of their social class. It doesn’t cost anything to treat people well. ” Ryan has always kept this maxim. With the tips for notoriously underpaid staff members, for example the material control room, he always showed a willingness to donate that is otherwise not known from him.

Bobby Ryan is now going far and wide and says he’s grateful for what ice hockey has given him. Less the goals and victories, but more: the friendships. And what else life had in store for him thanks to his job, even now, in the late autumn of his career. “I’m in Ambri, the people here open their stadium all by myself so that I can train, that’s crazy. And I’m excited about how beautiful it is here. The light is amazing. ”

Almost every day of his stay, he posts amazed pictures of Swiss nature on Twitter. If he had given up 16 years ago, when everything was getting too much for him and he had lost the fun in the sport, he would probably have given his father a hand in a fitness center in New Jersey. He is happy, it turned out differently.

Ambri-Piotta’s offer

HC Ambri-Piotta would have liked to have signed Ryan longer, at least until the Olympic break, but Ryan says he had to refuse. «I was honored by the offer. And I’m also sure that I can still find good ice hockey in me. But I can’t do that, I can’t leave my family alone for six weeks. I am at a point in my life where it is more important to me that I can pick up my children from school. Maybe something will happen again in North America. And otherwise it’s okay too. Not every player can say goodbye with a title and ride off into the sunset. “

Sunset and horse riding are good keywords, because in the summer the family lives in Idaho, far from the big city life of the NHL. Ryan says it was a conscious choice. He has been a public figure throughout his adult life and was the organization’s figurehead with the Ottawa Senators. He says: «You always have to be ‘on’, you always play a role. You always have the feeling that you cannot allow yourself to make mistakes, because everyone recognizes you everywhere. It was mentally stressful. ” The word “anxiety” is used, anxiety state.

All the more, Ryan longs for peace and quiet in his life after ice hockey. He says he will retire. “No one in Idaho is interested in ice hockey. Even if they know who I am, they don’t care. It is very pleasant. I look forward to enjoying nature, the rivers and forests undisturbed. “

Bobby Ryan left for Christmas, and shortly before noon he texted that he was getting into the car in Davos and was flying home from Zurich. It was an enriching week in Switzerland, despite everything, even without ice hockey. The Spengler Cup cancellation was commented on in all sorts of words: shock, worst case, disaster. Anyone who has learned so many lessons from life as Bobby Ryan can only smile mildly.