Ryan Walter at "home"

Fifteen years was a long time between home games for Ryan Walter. But what a road trip it was. From his retirement as a player from the Vancouver Canucks, to broadcasting, a foray into children's books, graduate school at Trinity Western University, a successful startup business in leadership training, and finally a return to the Canucks as an assistant coach, Walter completed the journey back to the team of his boyhood when he went behind the bench Tuesday night for Vancouver's National Hockey League pre-season game against the Edmonton Oilers.

"We grew up with the Canucks," Walter said Tuesday afternoon before his first "home" game since 1993. "My mom and dad have been in Burnaby forever. There's a whole bunch of us who have grown up with the Canucks."