By Arash Madani,
The Score
CALGARY -– In between periods, Ryan Getzlaf was one of the first off the ice. It was the last Sunday in November and his Anaheim Ducks were home to the Los Angeles Kings, but after each horn the centre rushed back to the dressing room to check the score.
It wasn’t just because Getzlaf is a Regina-born, self-professed football fan who grew up playing the game in the city’s minor football ranks. And not because he had a wager with former Ducks teammate Dustin Penner, a Manitoba native pulling for the Blue Bombers.
A few time zones away, his older brother Chris was in Toronto, with his Saskatchewan Roughriders, capturing the 95th Grey Cup. A nervous Ryan could only check in on how the Riders were doing during intermissions.
So he took his butterflies out on the L.A. Kings, scoring two goals and being named first star.
Meanwhile, as green confetti poured from the Rogers Centre roof, Chris became the second sibling to call himself a champion this year. Five months after Ryan and the Ducks captured Lord Stanley, the rookie receiver (on the practice roster for Sunday’s game) earned his spot in CFL history when the Roughriders won the franchise’s first title since 1989.
“You don’t even want to know what I said to him as soon as our game was over,” grinned Ryan, the 22-year-old Ducks sniper, sitting at his stall Thursday morning after Anaheim’s morning skate in Calgary. “I was so excited for him. We were Rider fans for a long time in our family.”
They had been in touch all season, beginning back in May for rookie camp, when Chris was in Hamilton, and all the way through Sunday’s title game. From Ryan giving him tips of how to survive pro two-a-days, to Chris heading west for a night to celebrate with the Stanley Cup when his brother brought it home. From a September trade that sent the University of Regina alum from Hamilton (the club that drafted him in the spring) to the Prairies, to an injury that tore two ligaments in his right ankle.
Their conversations began when Ryan was on his Cup run, and continued through Saskatchewan’s championship with Chris on board.
“He always stayed positive with me, especially at times when I’d be struggling, or was frustrated or when I got hurt,” Chris Getzlaf, 24, was saying Thursday afternoon, getting set to catch the Ducks-Flames game in Calgary that night, and Anaheim’s visit to Edmonton the next. “Getting that call after we won meant a lot. He knows what it takes to win a Cup.”
Two brothers, two sports, one mission, both attained.
Both as rookies, both in the same year.
After starting the year on the active roster in Hamilton, Chris Getzlaf felt the frustration, more even than the usual grind rookies face in the gruelling schedule. Shipped down to the taxi squad, dealing with injuries and a move across the country.
“The situation with the Ticats was good because I was a young receiver who could contribute in a receiving corps that wasn’t as established. That wasn’t the case in Saskatchewan when I first got there, so I wasn’t sure how it would work out,” he said. “But it all did.”
He stopped and grinned.
“We’re champs.”
“People ask me which is bigger, and I’m sure everyone in Regina will tell you it’s the Riders winning (the Grey Cup),” said Ryan, with a laugh. “But what an exciting thing for (Chris) to go through. It’s been a good year for all of us.”
Arash Madani is the Calgary bureau reporter with The Score.
(The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily of the Canadian Football League)
