Ronning leads Giants’ resurgence
Fifth-year winger inspiring young teammates with pit-bull mentality and goal-a-game scoring pace
Ty Ronning had his own reasons for playing in the New York Rangers’ organization this season but, given everything he’d already endured with the Vancouver Giants, it’s understandable he wasn’t in a hurry to rush back to Langley.
In his first four years with the Giants, Ronning had seen more coaches (five) than playoff games (four). The franchise, which was once the gold standard in the WHL, had recorded three straight lastplace finishes in the B.C. Division.
And the task of turning things around fell to Ronning, the oft-injured Tyler Benson and a collection of kids who were barely old enough to drive.
Still, as your mother might have told you, things happen for a reason, and Ronning now understands that his hometown junior team represents his best opportunity this season.
The son of former Canucks star Cliff Ronning, Ty had scored 23 goals in 23 games before the Giants met the Lethbridge Hurricanes at the Langley Event Centre on Wednesday night, leading a franchise resurgence both on and off the ice.
The Giants, meanwhile, aren’t all the way back, but at 10-9-2, they sat third in their five-team B.C. Division. Given their recent form, that qualifies as a stunning turnaround.
Since their salad days, things have changed dramatically for this team, but they appear to be carving a niche out in suburbia.
This season, with Ronning lighting it up and a collection of post-millennials joining the team, represents a lot of things for the Giants. Mostly, it represents a new beginning and maybe, a return to the good times.
“I wanted to be in the AHL,” Ronning says. “But, you know what, the way things have worked out, I’m excited to be here.
“The amount of ice time I’m getting is amazing and it’s in different situations. I’ve been given a lot of opportunities here to showcase what I can do. If I was in Hartford (with the Rangers’ AHL affiliate), I don’t know how much I’d be playing.”
And we don’t know what would have become of the Giants this season.
“For people who doubt if he’ll play in the NHL, I’d be very careful,” says Giants’ GM Glen Hanlon. “With his determination and skill set, I’d be shocked if there wasn’t a place for him in the NHL.”
Like his father, Ronning wasn’t exactly Mr. Irrelevant on draft day, but he was uncomfortably close to being the last player taken when the Rangers selected in the seventh round with the 201st pick in 2016.
As it happened, the Blues took his father in the seventh round of the 1984 draft before he went about the serious business of sticking it to the people who doubted him.
Ty isn’t his father. The son has speed to burn, a goal-scorer’s instincts and this year has added 10 pounds of muscle that makes him hard to deal with in the dirty areas.
Cliff was water-bug quick and possessed with the genius passing gene. But they share, as Hanlon says, “that Ronning pit bull mentality,” and Ty, like his father, delights in proving people wrong.
It’s helped that Benson has returned to health this season. The former first-overall pick in the bantam draft has had his career ravaged by an implausible series of injuries, the latest being a sports hernia. But he’s back now with 15 points in his first 10 games, giving the Giants and head coach Jason McKee two scoring lines.
It’s also helped that, after three chaotic seasons in which they changed coaches more often than some people change underwear, the Giants have established stability in their hockey department and set down roots in Langley.
After spending 14 mostly joyous seasons at the Pacific Coliseum — a Memorial Cup in 2007 when they averaged 8,760 fans a game, five straight first-place divisional finishes under coach Don Hay — owner Ron Toigo decamped to the ’burbs last season when the LEC offered a more user-friendly lease.
They have since regained some of their mojo, even if the business of the franchise has changed. They now play largely to Surrey and Fraser Valley fans. Dale Saip, the Giants’ VP who has been with the franchise since Day 1, says more than 50 per cent of their crowd is women.
“That tells me it’s moms and their families coming to our games and that’s right in our wheelhouse,” said Saip. “The Canucks are corporate. We’re family and (Langley) has worked well for us.”
As for the hockey department, McKee built a Tier 2 dynasty in Spruce Grove and has installed a crowd-pleasing, uptempo style with the Giants. The team is built around largely homegrown talent — 12 Giants were either first- or second-round picks by the club in the bantam draft, including defenceman Bowen Byram, a projected lottery pick in 2019. McKee’s also been surrounded by some veteran hands — Hanlon, assistant coach Dean Chynoweth, former Canucks trainer Mike Burnstein — who have brought a sense of calm and confidence to the operation.
“We’re really happy with the people we’ve brought in,” Hanlon said. “We recruited (Burnstein) as hard as any of our top players. That stability is so important.”
The 60-year-old Hanlon is in his second year as the GM and admits that, after coaching in the NHL and running programs in Europe, there was a learning curve with the juniors.
“You get a report about so and so who was late for class,” says the former goalie. “Every job has a problem and my job is different from an NHL job. But there are parts of the day that are fun and these are good kids.”
By way of illustration, Hanlon shares a story about calling up 15-year-old Jason Sourdif, the third overall pick in the 2017 bantam draft. Hanlon phoned Sourdif ’s father and advised his son would be making his WHL debut against Kelowna last weekend.
“I’d better get in touch with him then,” said the father. “He’s at a sleepover.”
Like Hanlon said, different from an NHL job, but not without its own rewards.