Hockey Is Life Corp. was founded in 2020. The Hockey Is Life Program is based out of McBride, British Columbia. The idea for the project – a book that is the complete guide to life in hockey, was born when hockey dad, manager, and writer/author, Stan Walchuk Jr, realized that year after year all hockey players and parents shared many of the same challenges, had many unanswered questions – important questions vital to skill development and personal growth.
Hockey Is Life was a five-year project to create a guide for players and parents, detailed advice and direction on how to be a better hockey player, as well as personal development. It is the compilation of a great amount of information from a great amount of research and many interviews from many hockey minds.
Stan Walchuk Jr. is a biologist, teacher, award winning filmmaker, and writer. He is the author of the National Best Seller, the CORDILLERA! Expedition, an amazing 1000-mile wilderness horse expedition across the North American mountain system. The CORDILLERA! Movie earned Stan Best Documentary and Best Producer Awards. He has written more than fifty articles for Canadian magazines. Stan describes life as ‘hockey and horses’.
Stan is the consummate hockey dad, hockey manager, and student of the game. Together with wife Marlene, daughter Aaron, and hockey son Dylan, they lived a truly unique life in hockey.
The creation of the book was a big job. It required hundreds of hours of planning, research, and writing – clear and concise writing. It was a book that had to be created from real life experience, living hockey life in the trenches, a father and son’s journey through hockey that touched nearly every rung on the hockey ladder, from small town minor hockey to pro. Stan Walchuk Jr. was the vehicle, the tool, that helped create the product.
This book is a guide for everyone’s life in hockey. But it could not exist without the amazing journey that was Dylan Walchuk’s life in hockey. The journey is the birth, the spirit, the soul of this book. A small kid from small town Canada who would eventually play pro hockey in the ECHL, Europe, and Russia/Asia.
Dylan began life with hockey in the small town of McBride, BC. Hockey was great fun but by age 12 it was apparent that, like many hockey whiz kids, he needed to expand his horizons, play with other elite level kids. That opportunity first came with the Kamloops Ice Dogs spring team. One might look at his list of accomplishments and think, ‘the rest is history’. His accomplishments may appear impressive: Rookie of the Year in Junior B; Junior A – scoring the game winning goal and the National RBC Cup; Full ride NCAA Scholarship, WHL, U-Sport, Pro with Denmark, ECHL, and a Russia/Asia VHL/KHL contract.
But not so fast, and not so easy. The real story lives between the lines. The countless 5 to 7 hour drives to practices with spring hockey teams, tryouts, tournaments, living away from home at the age of 14, long road trips, and the battles. Not just the physical battles that a 5’9” Junior and pro player must endure, but the challenges of keeping up with the best, of being passed over, buried, then rising above.
Dylan’s contributions to the book ‘Hockey Is Life’ provides important insight. He touched almost every rung on the hockey ladder on his climb to the professional ranks – so many ups and downs and turnarounds that it is enough to make anyone’s head spin. He was a typical hockey kid, the hero and the goat, buried then revived, stories like cuts etched in ice. His story is emblematic for families all across the continent – because he was not any different than many of those kids, and parents, out there heading down snowy roads early in the morning and late at night, trying to have fun and see how far the adventure can go.
Hockey Is Life is not personal story, but without the personal experience the book would lack reality, truth, depth. The end of the journey came when Dylan’s VHL team folded due to covid. Hockey helped him earn an economics degree from the university of Calgary. He has moved on to a new career.