Heather Wright/The Independent

Tyler McGregor has stood on the Paralympic podium, but the Forest native says his favourite feeling in the world is turning down Townsend Line as he heads home.

The captain of Canada’s Sledge Hockey Team returned to Forest Saturday for a community celebration of his accomplishments. He and his family rode the town’s antique fire truck to the Forest Legion and were led into the hall by members of the Forest Pipe Band.

McGregor has played for Team Canada for 14 years, winning three world titles, Paralympic silver medals in 2018, 2022 and 2026, and a Paralympic bronze in 2014. He became captain of Canada’s Para ice hockey team in 2019 and was the co-captain of the Milano Cortina 2026 Canadian Paralympic Team.

“I’ve had the the honor and the pleasure of playing a sport that I fell in love with when I was two-years-old, right around the corner on Townsend Line, for Team Canada for the past 14 years,” he told the crowd, many of whom were dressed in Team Canada hockey jerseys and some young boys who were holding hockey sticks.

McGregor says it has been an “incredible honour” to play the sport he loves, travelling to “every corner of the world” and “from coast to coast to coast across our beautiful country.

“Whatever World Championship that we just won, whatever heart-breaking loss that we just experienced somewhere around the world…despite whatever is going on, my favourite moment in the world, the favourite feeling that I have is turning on to Townsend Line or turning on to Forest Road… there’s a moment when you make that turn, that it’s this combination of your heart skipping a beat, but just also slowing down and knowing that you’re home again. And I think that says a lot about the people in this community, and I love that.

“It is my favourite feeling in the world.”

McGregor grew up down the street from the old Forest arena. “That was my sanctuary; that’s where I fell in love with the game of hockey…and that’s where my dreams were born.”

“I remember being that four or five year-old kid and watching our our hockey team in Silver Stick or playoffs on a Friday, Saturday night, and that is all that I wanted to do in my life. And that’s where my dream was really born, where it was established, where I started to think of the possibility of playing for Team Canada someday, and because of the love and support and the incredible volunteers coaches, everyone involved in this community that helped me grow as a young child, into a young man, into a 32 year-old man now.

“I was able to to take that journey as a result of the investment of people in this community.”

McGregor grew up like a lot of kids in Forest playing all kinds of sports and loved being on the ice. At 15, he broke his leg while playing. Shortly after that, he was diagnosed with spindle cell sarcoma, the same type of cancer which Terry Fox had.

“When I was diagnosed with cancer and lost my leg, this community showed up, not just for me, for my entire family, and not just on one day, but for months at a time,” McGregor recalled Saturday.

“The hardest time period of time in my and my family’s life, you were there, and I thank you for that. I thank you for the love and the support and just the selflessness that this community shows up with time and time again; that is really clutch. Thank you.

“Sometimes all you need is a little bit of strength, a little bit of courage, a little bit of resilience through someone else to help you just get through the next day.”

McGregor says in 2011, after he finished chemotherapy, the Make A Wish Foundation entered his life. It offers sick children and their families a wish to give them the strength they need to face critical illness. The McGregors went to Hawaii and Tyler, equipped with as special prosthetic leg for swimming, learned how to surf again.

“I was struggling to find my way through life, struggling to kind of feel like myself at school and in sport…It was our first family vacation that we got to go on after I finished chemotherapy, and it changed the trajectory of our entire lives.”

McGregor found his new passion on ice – sledge hockey – shortly after that. He joined the national team just two years later.

McGregor says the support of the people of Forest helped get him there. “I’m so fortunate that I had that positive love and support to help guide us through, so that we could come back stronger on the other side and have the opportunity to go on and live the life that that I I’ve been able to,” he says.

“That’s led to 14 years of the wildest experience, dreams that I couldn’t have ever imagined as a …four year-old growing up in this town.”

The support McGregor and his family felt in bad times continued in the good times as the town rallied around the Paralympic Team this winter when the team made it to the finals only to lose a heartbreaker against the United States.

“But I say it’s all relative, because it’s just as exciting for me to prepare for a Paralympic gold medal game as it is in front of a packed crowd as it was to to be in the stands shaking the glass on a Friday night here in Forest, cheering on our home team in Silver Stick or in the playoffs – it meant just as much.”

McGregor thanked the community for the support including people who sent personal messages, the banner hung downtown and then in the arena and decals declaring the sledge hockey player a hometown hero and special prints of McGregor which were sold to raise money for Make A Wish Canada where McGregor has been on the board of directors for the last four years.

Over $6,000 was raised during the Paralympics and at Saturday’s community event.

McGregor saw all of it, even as he prepared for the Paralympics. “That goes so far, especially in a year like this, when I spent 150 days away from home, from September to March, and just felt pretty disconnected from home, and that it just means so much to me that…during the lowest point in my life, this town and the people in it showed up and during one of the most positive, exciting experiences of my life, the same is true.

“You are always there, cheering on, offering your support and just being there as a strong, connected community. And I thank you so much for that.”