Dan Boyle battled the odds, ignored the noise, persevered and Wednesday he hung up his skates after a successful 17-year NHL career.
Every time somebody told him he couldn’t, it only make him work harder.
The 5-foot-11, 40-year-old Boyle recounted during his retirement speech at the HP Pavillion in San Jose that an NHL coach once told him if he grew few inches and put on 20 pounds, that’d be the only way he’d play in the league, and after 1,093 games the highly skilled defenceman walked away.
An Ottawa native, Boyle, who played for the Gloucester Rangers before attending the University of Miami at Ohio, took the long road to get to the NHL, but as he walked away after stops with the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, San Jose Sharks and New York Rangers, he wore a smile.