As a smaller hockey player, Ty Ronning never had to look far for inspiration.
In fact, his inspiration lived under the same roof.
“Watching my dad score goals and then come home all banged up and bruised, and then he would be out going out there and doing it again — I thought, ‘Wow, I want that,’” Ronning said.
Ronning is a five-foot-nine, 165-pound forward who led the Vancouver Giants with 31 goals last season.
His father, Cliff, played in more than 1,100 NHL games with seven different teams. Of those, 366 games were with the Vancouver Canucks, including the run to the 1994 Stanley Cup Final, where the Canucks lost in seven games to the New York Rangers.
The elder Ronning was a five-foot-eight, 165-pound playmaking centre who finished his 17-year career in 2004 with 306 goals and 869 points.
Ty Ronning was six years old when his dad hung up the skates.
“My dad was my superhero,” Ronning said.
“I would be going into the rinks and watching all the players spit in the trash cans, and I would go home and spit on the kitchen floor and my mom would be pretty upset, so I wasn’t allowed to go to the rink sometimes,” he said with a laugh.
But his dad never pushed him into the game, or into any sport for that matter.
Ronning, the second youngest of four kids and the only boy, played everything from soccer to lacrosse, football and golf.
He even did gymnastics with his sisters and proudly states that there is a recent Instagram video of him doing a back flip.
But hockey was the one for him.
And while the game is opening up to give smaller players an opportunity to succeed — Calgary Flames’ Johnny Gaudreau (five-foot-nine, 155-pounds) is a perfect example — size still matters in some people’s minds.
Ronning shrugs that off.
“You play with the mind, you play with the heart and you play with balls,” he said.
“You are a smaller guy? You just have to be quicker, you just have to work harder.”
That was a message his dad delivered daily.
“Nothing comes easy — that is what I was told when I was a little guy skating around,” Ronning said.
“My dad always told me hard work pays off. If you want something, go get it.”
Getting drafted into the NHL was a goal for the younger Ronning, one he accomplished this past June.
Ronning was taken in the seventh round (201st overall) by the New York Rangers, the same round as his dad, although with a lot fewer teams in the league back in 1984, the elder Ronning went 134th overall.
And while getting drafted was an accomplishment, Ronning shifts his focus to the Giants.
“We have to make the playoffs, that is the No. 1 goal because once you make the playoffs, anything can happen,” he said.
Ronning, a first-round pick (15th overall) of the team in the WHL bantam draft in 2012, is entering his fourth year in the league.
He scored nine goals and 20 points in 56 games as a 16-year-old but managed just a goal and two points in 24 games the following year, one in which he missed two thirds of the season with a broken clavicle.
One silver lining of missing so much time in 2014-15 was that it gave Ronning the time to see the game from a new perspective.
“It is tough. You are sidelined and you want to help the team win but you are in the bleachers just watching,” he said.
“You get to see how much time you really have (to make a play), you don’t have to rush things, you just have to remain calm with the puck.”
“It made me mentally strong. I understand what I can go through now and can do a lot of things.”
Ronning rebounded last season with 31 goals and 59 points in 67 games, leading the team in both categories.
The Giants are counting on Ronning, who turns 19 next month, to continue his upward progression.
“His offensive game, his vision, it is hard to find guys that can do some of the things he does,” said Giants coach Jason McKee.
“Very dynamic, shifty player. Very good in tight, has the ability to make plays in small areas.
“Definitely an offensive guy for us.”
Goals and stats aside, Ronning would love nothing more than seeing some more W’s.
“I had a lot of fun during the year, but is sucked that we couldn’t win games. That is not fun,” he said.
“I hate losing.
“I am just like my dad in that aspect.”