Interview - The Prince George Citizen - Frank Peebles

Ryan Shay was dealt a bad hand, but he's still winning the game.

The 20-year-old embodies the Canada Winter Games spirit even though he has a body that doesn't operate like most people's.

How many people can you imagine who got knocked off a high-level hockey path by a crushing auto crash, and consider themselves thankful? Lucky, even?

Shay was a major-midget player in Yarmouth, N.S. He was logging about as much ice time on his team's blueline as New York Rangers draft pick Ryan Graves and contended to make Team Nova Scotia but didn't make the cut.

At least, he didn't make the cut for the hockey squad. Two years later, he is making provincial teams he wasn't even trying out for because he has transferred his drive and athleticism into wheelchair sports.

He is a specialist in wheelchair sprints - the 100-, 200- and 400-metre distances - and dabbles in shot put and discus. He got the call to also don the Nova Scotia uniform in Prince George on the wheelchair basketball squad competing at the Canada Winter Games.

"Isn't it Murphy's Law? Guess who just called me up for an interview? Hockey Canada - now that I'm not playing hockey anymore," he said with a laugh.

He's also been the subject of a TSN feature, a CTV-Atlantic story, and numerous newspaper and magazine articles. His attitude and forward-looking views are magnetic.

"He has a charisma about him. He's got a mental ability that will take him just about anywhere he wants to go," said Lori Lancaster, a former Canada Games athlete who now works for Team Nova Scotia's mission staff in Prince George. She said he has done a lot to boost the morale of the athletes and staff who can't help but be impressed at his refusal to break into a bad mood.

"As a (wheelchair basketball team) we have a lot to learn," said Shay. "Every team in every sport has bumpy patches but it's such a great group to learn with."

He is extra motivated in Prince George because he knows the basketball team is not his primary element so he wants to pull his weight for the others in the blue and white jerseys.

"For my level of injury (listed as C7 Sensory and C8 Motor, which gives him weak to moderate hand strength and paralysis up to the middle of his chest) I got through rehab a bit faster than usual and a bit stronger than usual," he said. "But I had great medical staff working with me, great genes, and a determined work ethic. Playing rep hockey, that's what I did, I went out there to hit bodies and defend like crazy, and always keep working on my game. It's embarrassing - especially when you're losing - to not be giving your all. Why would you sell yourself and sell your team short?"

He has a six-year plan with his coaching team and family to strive for the highest level the wheelchair sports the world offers. Nothing short of the Rio Paralympic Games is in his cross-hairs, and the Para-Pan-American Games in Toronto are so close he can taste them.

In amongst all the training, the scrimping for the expensive racing chairs he will need to be on the same playing field as his competitors, and saving for the travel expenses (his doorway to the wheelchair track elite is through Switzerland and Dubai), he is also going to school. He is taking a pair of online post-secondary courses (psychology via Mount St. Vincent University) half the year that will lead to a couple of campus-based courses at St. Mary's University the other half. He will continue to alternate like that until he attains his academic goals in balance with his athletic ones.

"I intend to become a liar, I mean, lawyer," he said. "If I set all my standards high and I attain it all, then great. If I fall a little short, that's still very good. So I have no reason to go for mediocrity. Look what's already happened for me. I'm 20 years old, I'm competing for my province, I'm on my first trip out west, I get to see this great community you have in Prince George, I got to be a part of the opening ceremonies and that was a blast, I got to meet (music star) Alan Doyle, and I got to hang out back stage with fiddle player Kendel Carson. I've got a girlfriend, so I don't mean it like that, (Carson's) just an amazing performer. Life is good."