Tyler Myers’ focus on real life has lots of lessons for his younger peers. Also, don’t pay attention to social media
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Tyler Myers, we’ve come to understand, is a player who likes to speak. He’s always ready, and seemingly happy, to take on reporter’s questions. When the team was struggling, which was a common thing over the first four years or so of his time in Vancouver, he was always there, trying to explain what he was and wasn’t seeing in the team’s performance.
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Now that the team seems to have found its way under Rick Tocchet, there’s way less explaining the negative and way more explaining the positive.
That’s something that Elias Pettersson highlighted Saturday night when he was asked about what Myers, the 1,000-game man, had taught him about being an NHLer.
“Oh a thinker,” he said about the question. He paused a moment, then made note of Myers’ perspective on life.
“Always come to rink and have fun, no matter what happens. You live a good life,” Pettersson said.
As an athlete, Myers is at the pinnacle of the sport. Even when he’s struggled, he’s still been amongst the best hockey players in the world. That’s not something to forget. He’s paid to play a game.
And of course, he’s also a parent to three kids. He loves being a dad.
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His oldest, Tristan, is a bit of a miracle baby. He was born five weeks early, by emergency c-section, because he’d stopped moving in the womb. It turns out he had lost 80 per cent of his blood. In the first 24 hours of his life, he suffered a pulmonary embolism. He nearly died. He was saved by the NICU at a Winnipeg hospital.
It was 12 days before his parents, Tyler and mom Michela, could hold him. These early-life challenges led to Tristan suffering from cerebral palsy. But he’s thriving, dad Tyler says. Cochlear implants in both ears have helped him encounter the world.
That’s some kind of perspective. It explains the passion Myers has always shown. When you’re a parent, you want the best for your kids. Your view on the world changes after you become a parent, whether your baby has an easy entry into the world or a difficult on.
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Myers standing out as a leader makes sense. He’s also learned how to be impactful in what he says, clearly. And most often he does it with a wink and a smile and a laugh.
“He’s always a good voice. He always brings humour. He’s always been a good teammate,” Pettersson said.
Just don’t read it
i remember when my pal Mike Burak first made the Canadian national rugby team two decades ago. In those days, there was no social media, but there were message boards and the Canadian rugby message board at CanadianRugby.ca.
And some of the commentary there was off the hook.
It was a lesson for Mike that you just shouldn’t read what people say about you. You don’t need it.
Fast-forward 20 years and we’ve discovered that social media was a disaster for society. Most of us have terrible, unconsidered thoughts. We don’t need unfiltered access to those. And then there’s the bad-faith actors, looking to stir up division and madness in society — sometimes to their benefit, sometimes just because.
Social media has fried our collective brains. It’s exposed so many of us as unable to distinguish reality from fantasy.
There’s a direct line now from fans to players — but only if you want there to be.
The advice is the same now as it was in 2004: don’t read the internet. And don’t tolerate your friends sending you stuff either.
Goalies are voodoo
Kevin Lankinen, more and more, is a reminder of how weirdly NHL teams value goalies.
Why sign a guy to an eight-year deal if you can be smart and find guys like Lankinen?
So keep that in mind when you think “is this really the list?”
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Because Binnington-Montembeault-Hill isn’t exactly a lights-out trio of goalies. It’s no Brodeur-Joseph-Belfour, that’s for sure.
But maybe it doesn’t matter? When you’re playing a tournament of the NHL’s best players, it’s what happens in front of the goalie that matters most.
And to bring it back to the Canucks: you’re looking at the team that’s the seventh-lowest in expected-goals against this season. That’s solid defence. That’s how you become a cup contender.
pjohnston@postmedia.com
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