For Canada’s Paralympic Captain Tyler McGregor, hockey was the ‘beacon’ of solace and success

Months after Tyler McGregor underwent surgery to repair a broken left leg, a lump the size of a tennis ball appeared at the fracture site. An emergency biopsy the next day revealed he had a type of bone cancer called spindle cell sarcoma.

He was 16 and underwent eight months of chemotherapy. He thought he was rid of the disease when his orthopedic oncologist told him some horrible news. Within moments, the trajectory of his life changed.

“He said to me, ‘If we want to save your life, we have to amputate your leg,'” said McGregor, now 27 and captain of the Canadian para-hockey team. “It hit me like a truck. I remember looking at my parents and crying. Hockey was kind of my identity.

Tyler McGregor Named Canadian Para Hockey Team Captain For Upcoming Paralympic Games

He grew up in Forest, a small town near Sarnia in southwestern Ontario, and played at the highest level in all of his age groups. He was hoping to be drafted by an OHL team in 2010, but his left leg was amputated on the first day of the draft.

“Since I first picked up a stick at 18 months old, hockey has been my passion,” McGregor said. “In the darkest moment of my life, it became a guiding light.”

After having surgery, he knew he wanted to stay in the sport in some capacity. He first tried playing for a standing amputee team, but when he found he couldn’t keep up, he switched to para hockey, in which players with lower body impairments use a two-bladed sled for maneuvering on the ice. A decade later, he is considered one of para hockey’s biggest stars.

Along with deals with Canadian Tire and Panasonic, he was featured in a Gatorade Canada ad last month with Team Canada women’s hockey captain Marie-Philip Poulin and former men’s captain Sidney Crosby. The campaign theme is “greatness” and McGregor certainly fits.

He was the youngest member of Canada’s national team to win a gold medal at the 2013 world championships, had three assists when he won a bronze medal at the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Games, scored twice 13 seconds in the final at the 2017 world championships when Canada beat the United States, and had eight goals and five assists in five games when the Canadians won a silver medal at the Pyeongchang Games in 2018.

On Tuesday, he scored a goal and added an assist in a 6-0 win over South Korea that helped Canada advance to the semifinals. The Canadians will face South Korea again on Thursday at 11:05 p.m. EST.

He would love to win a gold medal but, like other Paralympians, he has more perspective on life.

In February of last year, he raised more than $30,000 for The Terry Fox Foundation by skating 25 kilometers in his para-hockey sled on a skating loop in Ontario’s Blue Mountains. He also became a spokesperson for Citibank’s #StareAtGreatness campaign along with other Paralympians. The goal is to change the perception of disabled athletes.

“It’s okay to watch and ask questions if it strengthens the relationship with the disability community,” McGregor says. “We are ready to share our personal stories and it is an honor and a pleasure to be a part of it.”

He thinks back to 2009 as he prepared for his final year of minor-midget triple-A hockey. He ran hills for weeks while training and began experiencing sharp pain in his left leg which he mistook for shin splints.

Shortly after, in his first game of the season, he collided with another player and fractured himself.

“I knew right away,” McGregor says. “I tried to crawl to the bench.”

He had a titanium rod and six screws inserted into his leg and seemed to be on the right track.

“I was walking in three to four weeks, getting back on skates in six to eight, and recovering as you would expect,” he says.

He had started training again when the lump appeared.

“All of a sudden I was lying in a hospital bed,” McGregor says.