Photo credit: Contributed.

By Regan Bartel

Rockets forward's father starred in WHL

Ty Hurley doesn’t need to look far for inspiration

Apr 1, 2024 | 7:45 AM

Hockey players are often asked to dedicate playoff runs to significant people in their lives.

Those who provide inspiration, wisdom, and support, not when things are going well, but a person they can lean on when things are difficult.

Kelowna Rockets forward Ty Hurley doesn’t have to look very far to find someone in his life who doesn’t give up, has a cup-half-full approach, and has faced adversity head-on.

Mike Hurley, Ty’s 46-year-old father, should be admired for who he was as a WHL all-star, and for the man he is today confined to a wheelchair.

Playing four seasons with the Tri-City Americans in the mid-90s before being traded to the Portland Winterhawks in his 20-year-old year, where he would win a league title and a Memorial Cup, Hurley knows much about making the best of a bad situation.

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“We were on a family vacation in 2011, when I got into a golf cart accident,” Hurley told RocketFAN. “I broke my back which left me a paraplegic. Ty was seven at the time, so that was a big event in our family.”

Hurley’s wife, Kelly, was pregnant at the time with their second child, with the young father dealing with the eventuality of losing the ability to walk.

Calling it a ‘life changer,’ he went through many highs and lows.

“From day one, I knew I could do it [live with it]”, Hurley said with optimism in his voice. “I knew I could figure it out. Like with anything, you have to find a way and we’ve managed. We move on.”

Hurley, who scored 50 goals in his final season in the WHL while using his powerful legs to skate around defenseman, now found himself using a buggy to get around, a van that has a hydraulic lift to get him into the driver seat of the vehicle and using other equipment to make his life easier.

“I was fortunate that I had a job that I could go back to,” Hurley added about working at his family owned business [Hurley Meats Distributors] with his brother. “I knew I could do my job from home or from wherever I was. Just the family support was huge during the early days. I didn’t know where the end was and what it would look like…I didn’t think I would be golfing; I know that. You do start to learn, a little bit because of technology, you can live a very normal life.”

A great athlete with silky hands as a hockey player, Hurley now uses a cart to move around the golf course and plays between 40 and 50 rounds a summer.

“My golf game is okay, I can get around the course,” he said with a smile. “We spend our summers in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, so I get out a lot.”

Despite the life altering injury, Hurley hasn’t stopped giving back to the game he loves. On a sled, much like you would see Sledge Hockey athletes use, he is out on the ice instructing the next generation of hockey players who have the same aspirations as he did of playing in the Western Hockey League.

When asked if he could turn back time, would Hurley love to be bag skated, something he endured in his playing days.

“I would skate forever,” he admitted. “If I could run, I would just keep running. I feel like Forrest Gump.”

Much like his father, Ty Hurley has many of the same attributes. The 19-year-old, who returned to the lineup Friday night for game one of the playoffs against Wenatchee after sitting out with an injury, is a terrific teammate, always has a smile on his face, and has a zeal for life no matter what obstacles get in his way.

“I want to think we are similar, Mike Hurley added. “If I can use some of the experiences that I have had over the last 10 years and put them back into a 19-year-old…I think Ty has seen a lot of different things that most kids haven’t at his age. He has been through a lot as he lived through those years.

“Now we golf a lot together,” he added. “We share that. Usually, I can get in his head though”, he said with a laugh.

“I think I can still take [beat] him.”