A homecoming of sorts for Luke Huska

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That makes tonight a little more interesting.

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But it isn’t really about being the son of a former Rockets coach.

It is about a kid returning to the building where he once watched the WHL as a young hockey fan, only this time he won’t be sitting in the stands.

He’ll be on the ice.

Luke was barely four years old when his father left Kelowna in 2014.

He was far too young to understand what it meant to have his dad behind the Rockets bench, but the building and the team were already part of his earliest memories.

“I moved away when I was young, but I’ve had a lot of good memories here,” Huska told RocketFAN.

Those memories eventually became his own.

As Luke grew older, he developed the same dream shared by so many young hockey players in the Okanagan: someday, he wanted to play in the WHL.

“I grew up watching the Rockets in here, so I’ve kind of always had that in me, that kind of goal,” Huska said. “So it’s cool to be playing against them.”

The names from those nights still come back to him.

“I was younger, so I don’t know if I ever wanted to be like him, but Zach Franko, my assistant coach here, I remember him back in the day, Myles Bell, then obviously Colton Sissons was another guy,” Huska said. “But no, there’s lots. It was cool watching the games.”

Franko, a former Rockets player in his own right, is now an assistant coach with Swift Current, so one he remembers watching in Kelowna is now helping coach him in the WHL.

The circle has gotten a little smaller.

Ryan helped coach the Kelowna Rockets to a WHL championship in 2009, spending 7 seasons at the helm while racking up 303 victories.

For Luke, though, he is still Dad first and one of the most important voices in his hockey career.

“Probably my dad,” Huska said when asked who has been the greatest influence on his hockey career.

It is an easy answer, but the relationship goes well beyond having a famous hockey name attached to his family.

Ryan watches virtually all of Luke’s games. If he can’t watch one live, he’ll go back and watch it afterward.

“He’ll tell me things he saw. Maybe I played a really good game, tell me things I did well, or if I didn’t play so well, tell me things I can work on,” Luke said. “But it’s good to know I can just bounce ideas off him. He’s been great, super supportive. So yeah, it’s been nice.”

There is no shortage of hockey knowledge in the Huska family.

Luke never had the chance to watch his father play junior hockey, but Ryan still sees some differences between their games.

“You know what, he always tells me that he was much more, like, I guess, defensive and I got some more skill than him,” Luke said with a smile. “So I’ll take that. I’ll take that.”

For Luke, that may be one of the more important parts of the journey.

He is carrying a familiar last name into the WHL, but he is beginning to build a hockey identity of his own.

His first season in the WHL has brought him to Swift Current, and now the schedule has delivered him back to the city where some of his earliest hockey memories were made.

“I’ve been around a little bit, but it’s been a while since I’ve been in this (Prospera Place) building for sure,” Huska said.

That building will look different from where he stands tonight.

There will be no sitting beside his mom, Denise, in the stands and taking it all in. No watching the Rockets from a distance and wondering what it might be like to play in the league.

The Rockets will be the opponent.

The Broncos will be his team.

And Luke Huska will be doing something he once could only imagine.

Playing in the WHL.

In Kelowna.

Against the Rockets.

Prospera Place will look familiar.

The view won’t.