Ryan McGuire is on a mission to create his own legacy. And at the rate the 17-year-old center is going, the player known around hockey rinks as “Pierre McGuire’s son” might accomplish that goal sooner rather than later.
While Pierre continues to grace television screens as an analyst on NBC Sports hockey telecasts, Ryan has wrapped up his third season on the varsity team at Belmont Hill School, where the New Canaan, Conn., resident again performed at a high level.
“When I’m on top of my game, I’m not thinking,” Ryan said. “I’m winning faceoffs and being responsible in the defensive zone. I’m shooting the puck, using my quick release. I’m dominating the puck in the corners and finding open lanes for my teammates. I have to be moving my feet, too. That’s a big thing that I focus on.”
Ryan’s work already has captivated scouts, as he’s listed 139th overall among North American skaters on National Hockey League Central Scouting’s midterm rankings for the 2020 NHL Draft.
“I was very happy when I saw my name on the list,” said the 6-foot, 176-pounder. “But a couple minutes after my dad told me, I looked at him and said, ‘It’s only the beginning. This doesn’t mean anything because you can be on that list and end up not getting drafted.’ It’s an honor, and I’m super-proud of having my name on there, but I’m not getting comfortable. I’m going to keep pushing.”
Ryan has been toiling in hockey for most of his life, and every step of the way he has lugged around the baggage of his surname. Whether he was performing in Montreal for Les Gouverneurs, the Lac-St Louis Lions or Westmount Wings, or in New England for Mid Fairfield, the Boston Junior Eagles, East Coast Wizards or Belmont Hill, his opponents have enjoyed reminding him that he’s “Pierre’s son.”
“When I was younger,” Ryan said, “it was difficult for me to play against guys because they were always chirping me about him.”
The key words in his quote are “was difficult.” That’s because Ryan has learned to use the unwanted attention as an advantage.
“There aren’t many things that players say to me other than things about my dad,” he said. “Not letting anything bother me anymore has really benefitted me.
"Another good thing, too, is people have always said I’m not good enough and I’m not going to make it to the next level and I am where I am because of my dad. That drives me because that’s not true. The more people say I don’t deserve it, the harder I work for it. I use what people say to fuel me. It really gets me going.”
Ryan is quick to note that he’s lucky, too. While he seeks to make a name for himself, having his dad around has been a major blessing. When he was a kid, he was able to join Pierre in NHL locker rooms and at NHL All-Star Games.
One of the memories that races to the forefront of his mind when he reminisces on those experiences is how the players treated each other, even if they were rivals.
“You have a bunch of guys who play against each other and hate each other, but then they get to the All-Star Game and can drop whatever issues they had going into it,” Ryan said. “And then they play together side by side and make beautiful hockey plays. The game of hockey is a beautiful thing where you can hate a guy when you play against him yet be his best friend when he’s on your team.”
Meeting the game’s elite players and being immersed in the NHL culture at such a young age caused Ryan to dream of one day performing in “The Show.” With that ambition gaining steam as he’s gotten older, he’s taken everything his dad has told him to heart.
The most important lessons he has been taught by Pierre are “to do everything hard” and “be respected.”
“Hard resonates with a lot of different aspects in hockey," he said. "You skate hard. You shoot hard. You pass hard. You hit hard. In everything I do, I try to be hard on the puck and hard to play against. And you want to be respected around the league by everyone. At the end of the day, you want everyone to say, ‘I hate playing against him, but I respect him.’ ”
Ryan’s father isn’t the only family member to leave a lasting impact on him. His mom, Melanie, deserves kudos for all of the support she has provided both Ryan and his sister, Justine.
“I can’t thank my mom enough,” Ryan said. “She has worked just as hard as I have, just in a different way. When we lived in Westmount in Montreal, we had to cross the Champlain Bridge every day in the middle of traffic to get to my practices, and it would take an hour or two. She never complained. She made me pasta in a Thermos cup, picked me up from school and drove me to practice. She was always driving my sister around, too.
“My sister is a freshman at Dartmouth and is on the crew (rowing) team, and when we were younger my mom had to drive her to the boathouse. When we went to school in Connecticut, we went to schools in opposite directions. My sister went to school 10 minutes in one direction and I went to school 30 minutes the other way, so every day she drove 10 minutes to my sister’s school, 40 minutes to my school, and then she’d have to drive in an hour of traffic back to the house. I don’t think I’ve ever really had the opportunity to say thank you to her for that. Without her, I wouldn’t be where I am today, and I wouldn’t be the player and man I am. She’s helped me a lot in my highs and lows.”
In addition to his parents, Ryan is grateful for all of the coaches he’s played for and his supporters since his earliest hockey-playing days.
The right-handed shooter especially appreciated playing for Wizards coach Bobby Jay, a former defenseman who played three games with the Los Angeles Kings.
“He coached me both of my 16-U years,” Ryan said. “I loved him a lot. He was a great guy.”
Although Ryan has never been officially coached by Belmont Hill alum Scott Fusco (Burlington, Mass.), he credits the former Harvard forward and 1986 Hobey Baker Award winner for providing him with tremendous guidance.
“During my first three years at Belmont Hill, I stayed at Scott’s house on weekends because we were good family friends,” Ryan said. “He always invited me to his 19-U girls’ skates with the Wizards when I was in eighth grade, so I skated with them and talked hockey with him.”
Before Ryan joined the varsity club, he played one season in eighth grade with the school’s third team, where he was coached by former Middlebury College goaltender Eric Smith.
Then Ryan earned his spot on the school’s top squad, where he’s been developing under bench boss Jeremiah McCarthy.
“Belmont Hill has a traditional hockey team, and that’s one of the reasons I love the program,” Ryan said. “You have to earn everything. One big thing with recruits, and I learned it, is you are never told you have a guaranteed spot on varsity. I was fortunate to make it my freshman year, but Coach McCarthy made me earn my ice time; I didn’t play much at the beginning of the year. He sees the little things you do in practice, and I really respect that about him. If you earn your time, he plays you.
"That’s something that doesn’t happen often anymore. It teaches character, which goes past hockey. It’s a lifestyle and shows you that hockey players are more than just what they do on the ice.”
Both last season and this season, Ryan was able to showcase his skills in the United States Hockey League with the Madison Capitols. He played four games on each occasion and has one point to his credit, a goal he scored 20 seconds into his third game a season ago.
Ryan noted, though, that he benefitted from favorable conditions after he made the jump to the junior circuit because he had plentiful practice time to prepare for his first match.
“I didn’t play in a game for the first five days, so I was able to adjust to the quicker pace in practice,” he said. “The biggest thing I learned in the USHL is that you have to know what you’re going to do with the puck before you get it because it’s so much faster. You have to know where guys are and where to pass the puck.”
The pace will only increase as Ryan moves up the ranks. One of his future hockey homes includes Colgate University, where he’s committed to play starting with the 2021-22 campaign.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to know the new assistant coach, Brett Riley, a long time now after playing on his Boston Generals summer teams,” Ryan said. “He was super-proactive with me. And when I finally took my official visit to campus, it was a beautiful day and I felt at home. I could see myself being happy there.
"A defenseman I played with on the Capitols, Anthony Stark, goes there and gave me the rundown on it; he’s so happy he picked it. The coaching staff is the type of coaches I want to play under, and I really see myself excelling in their systems.”
As for where he will play after college, that remains unknown. But what is certain is that his mission to be known as “Ryan McGuire” in hockey circles is getting closer to being completed by the day.
@LeoScaglioneJr
