I asked Hunter Dryden which version of his grandfather showed up most often at the dinner table: the goalie who won six Stanley Cups, the author, or the cabinet minister. He didn’t hesitate. “None of them,” he said. “Just grandpa.”
That answer tells you a lot about how Hunter carries one of the biggest names in hockey. He’s the grandson of Hall of Fame goaltender Ken Dryden and the son of Olympic gold medalist Tammy Shewchuk-Dryden, and this season he’s trading New England for Vancouver Island as a goaltender for the Victoria Grizzlies of the BCHL.
Hunter grew up in Fairfield, Connecticut, and spent his last three years at Taft School, a boarding school where he went from playing a single game as a backup to becoming the starter in his final season. Like a lot of goalies before him, he didn’t so much choose the position as fall into it. “My parents didn’t want me to be a goalie at all,” he told me. They pushed him toward forward, he hated it, and a coach eventually let him try the net instead.
The family resume is impressive on its own, but Hunter would rather talk about controlling momentum. He talks about earning a team’s trust by making the timely save, not just piling up a good save percentage, and credits both his grandfather and his father, a former Harvard pitcher, for teaching him how to stay set and stay in the moment.
He’ll be sharing the Victoria crease this season with Mikus Vecvanags, a fellow Montreal Canadiens prospect, which Hunter calls “a funny coincidence” given his grandfather’s history with that same franchise. He’s a proud dual citizen who has spent his whole life rooting for Canada at the Olympics and World Juniors.
Hunter’s goal for this season is simple: play well, learn from his goalie partner, and eventually chase NCAA hockey. Whatever comes next, he’s made it clear he wants it to be his own.
You can hear the whole conversation, on this week’s episode of The PULSE Community Podcast: https://bit.ly/S3EP02PulsePodcast
The PULSE Community website: ThePulseCommunity.ca.
Peter McCully is a multimedia creator and podcast host based in Parksville, BC. https://mccullymedia.ca/category/blog/