WONG honoured
LETHBRIDGE HURRICANES’ FAN FAVOURITE RECOGNIZED FOR OFF-ICE ROLE IN COMMUNITY
Mayor Chris Spearman presented the Key to the City to Tyler Wong, captain of the Lethbridge Hurricanes for their memorable playoff run this season —
After a memorable five-year career with the Lethbridge Hurricanes, Tyler Wong was a lock to be remembered in Lethbridge.
On Monday afternoon at City Hall, the City of Lethbridge made sure of it as Mayor Chris Spearman presented the Key to the City to the product of Cochrane who made his presence felt in the city just as much off the ice as on it.
Over the course of five years in Hurricanes silks, plenty of accoloades have come the graduating foward’s way, but Monday’s key honour was a new one for Wong. Post-presentation, Wong playfully pondered with the media where the key will get him.
“I know as much about it as you do,” he said with a chuckle. “We’ll see, maybe I’ll go to a restaurant and try to get a free meal. I don’t know. But we’ll see.”
The kidding aside, the right winger who played 317 games for the Hurricanes and netted 143 goals and 298 points said it was an honour to get such recognition from his adopted hometown.
“I’ve said it so many times, Lethbridge is a second home for me and I’ll always have a special place in my heart for this city and I’ll definitely be back to visit and attend some Canes games. So definitely an amazing honour.” In a memorable playoff run, Wong helped pace the Canes with 11 goals and 24 points in 20 games, helping Lethbridge to the third round and Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Regina Pats.
In his time in Lethbridge, he piled up points in the community as well.
He was recently named the 2017 winner of the Doug Wickenheiser Memorial Trophy as the WHL’s Humanitarian of the Year and was also named the WHL Eastern Conference Humanitarian of the Year for a third consecutive season.
Wong also established the local ‘Canes Kidsport program which raised more than $13,000 this season and joined coaches and teammates to help local food banks deliver food hampers and toy baskets and visited seniors’ homes during the holidays.
That, combined with his on-ice presence, earned Wong the Fan Favourite Player for all his five years with the Hurricanes.
“The people here are amazing, just so friendly and welcoming. It just feels like a town of 5,000, not a town of almost 100,000. Just walking down the street and meeting people and saying ‘hi’. It’s a tight-knit community that is very supportive of the Hurricanes and athletes in general. It’s an amazing community to be a part of and hopefully I’ll be able to come back and see the many people that have reached out and become close friends to me.”
With the Hurricanes season having ended a little over a week ago, it was time to pack up and head back to Cochrane.
“The summer is going to be lots of training and back to work trying to make some money on the farm and just spending time with my family. The hockey season was quite long this year, which I was happy for,” he said.
“I wish it was a little bit longer. But at that time during the season I don’t get to spend a lot of time with my brothers and relatives and friends back home. So it’ll be good to settle back in and get back to a routine back home and get back to riding my horse and doing my thing at home.”
But Wong had a sendoff message for his second home.
“Thank you for the amazing five years that it was,” he said.
“All the support through the good and the bad times. It definitely would have been easy for our fans to quit coming when we were having 12-win seasons. I just appreciated everything the fans did for me to support us and to always stay for autographs and to cheer so loud to make the Enmax such an amazing place to play.”
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