Windsor-Based Paralympic Hockey Player Tyler McGregor Inspires the Nation
The sheen of the freshly flooded ice glints like a diamond in the sun. Under the warm glow of the spotlights at the Forest Arena, Dean and Trudy McGregor gently placed their three-year-old son, Tyler, upon the sheet. Wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, little Tyler shuffles his feet, scratching into the ice the opening lines of the epic poem that his hockey career will become. Most parents have big dreams for their little ones at the rink—NHL stardom, Stanley Cups—but little did Dean and Trudy know, their son was a fledgling World Champion, Paralympian, and Canadian sports icon.
A Destiny-Altering Event
For Tyler McGregor, a resident of Windsor-Essex, his love of the game of hockey was instant and strong. “My love started out of the sensory parts of it,” he explains. “The sound of your skates on the ice; handling a puck on your stick.” Early on, it was the pure fun of the game, but as he grew, he fell in love with what the game gives: the team mentality, the lifelong friendships, working towards a common goal, and learning to push himself in a high-performance environment. As he developed, he moved on from minor hockey in Forest, to playing AAA with the Sarnia Jr. Sting and, later, the Huron Perth Lakers. One fateful evening in 2009, he broke his leg in a game. This soon led to a diagnosis of spindle cell sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, in his left leg. Despite intervention, doctors were unable to save the limb, having to amputate it in January 2010.
“For months I felt confused, sad, lonely, pretty isolated from what I knew was my life beforehand,” he recalls. “Despite all that was going on, there was still this deep-seated belief that in some capacity, I’d find my way back to hockey. I didn’t know how, but I never lost that belief.
“For me, it was just about getting back on ice. I tried to skate—the day that I finished chemotherapy, I put my skates back on. I knew that I wasn’t going to be the NHL player that I thought I’d always wanted to be, but maybe there was a different path.”
A Road Less Travelled
For most athletes, this would be the end of the road. Not for Tyler. Encouraged by his former coaches, Tyler refused to give up on his hockey dreams and started training to play para hockey. Within two years, Tyler, at 18 years old, was selected to play for the Canadian national para hockey team. He made his debut later that year at the 2012 World Sledge Hockey Challenge, recording his first goal and helping his team to a silver medal. A year later, he became a World Champion, winning gold in Goyang, South Korea in a nail-biting 1-0 win against their arch-rival, Team USA, in the final. He was the youngest player on the team.
“I was a young player,” he admits. “I think our coach saw value in that I was a young up-and-coming player with a high-level hockey background and had potential. I appreciate that our coach at that time, and the team for that matter, welcomed me—probably before I was ready to play on the national team.”
Tyler put in the work. He earned the respect of his teammates, and of the country. In 2017, he led the World Championships in scoring, was named to the leadership core in 2018 and, in 2019, he was named captain of Team Canada.
“As a leader, your primary job is to lead yourself well,” he states. “I believed that as a leader, I had to do anything and everything and probably tried to control far more than I should.” However, he has matured and learned as a captain—how to inspire and to delegate. “My primary responsibility is to develop the leaders around me and ensure that I shine light on them. It truly is a shared responsibility.”
In 15 years with Team Canada, he has won three World Championships, and this year, in Italy, he became a four-time Paralympian. In the three preceding Paralympic Games, he has brought home two silvers and a bronze.
“In high-performance sports, you’re required to give absolutely everything of yourself with no guarantee that the outcome you want is going to be on the other side of that,” explains Tyler. “The outcome is never really the point,” adding that it’s about the process. “It’s a byproduct of the investment that you make in your everyday habits.”
A Place To Call Home
As Tyler found his place in the hockey world, he started to find where he belonged in everyday life. Tyler’s fiancé, Meg Roberts, co-host of AM800’s “Mornings with Meg & Mike” is from Essex County. After a few years of navigating the world together; living, working and training in Toronto; and a stint for Meg on the East Coast while working for CBC; the couple bought a house in Windsor-Essex last January.
“Both of us grew up in quieter environments, places filled with warmth and really close to our families,” Tyler reflects. “That’s something we knew we wanted for ourselves and for our future family. It’s been so refreshing. We love the community. It’s a place we want to raise our family and take the next step in our lives.”
In the lead up to his departure for Italy, Tyler trained with his teammates in Oakville, but his local training has been predominately at Atlas Tube Arena in Belle River and at Sports Medicine Physiotherapy on Walker Rd. for off-ice conditioning. However, he’s getting the domestic routine down as well—Thursday wing nights with Meg’s family, Sunday dinner with her parents, quiet Friday nights in, and socialization with friends on Saturdays. He has found his groove in his new home.
A Sports Icon
Throughout the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Tyler’s face has been everywhere. Partnered with Air Canada, General Mills, Coca-Cola, Egg Farmers of Ontario, OLG, and Petro Canada, his image has been on the side of jets, on cereal boxes, and on your television—something he finds very humbling.
“These are organizations that changed my life and, in some ways, saved it,” he admits. “I feel a responsibility to help impact the next generation. We really wanted to build partnerships that are more transformational than transactional. The pillars of who I am are resilience and community—creating a sense of unity. Those are the values I look for in partners.”
Relishing the role of role-model, Tyler has made big strides to give back to his community, acting as a national board member for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, a member of the Canadian Paralympic Committee Athletes’ Council, work with Own The Podium, a chair of the Hockey Canada National Team Athletes’ Committee, and participating in a cross-country skate fundraiser for the Terry Fox Foundation. “Whether it’s kids facing critical illness or the future generation of athletes—I do feel a responsibility.”
Bringing Home The Gold—In Life
As a four-time Paralympian, Tyler encourages young athletes to dream big. “Life, adversity, and challenges are going to come your way no matter what,” he states. “Maybe it’s best that we focus on all of the things that are great in our lives and have gratitude for that.”
Also, he shares—with firsthand knowledge—that what defines you isn’t falling, but your ability to get back up. “You have to build a tolerance for risk and be okay with failing fast—and learning from that,” Tyler explains. However, “balancing gratitude with the willingness to challenge yourself is probably one of the most important pieces of advice I could give.”
