Ducks' Ryan leaves family troubles behind

ANAHEIM, Calif. - Bobby Ryan made a name for himself in the NHL this season, even though it isn't the one the rookie from Cherry Hill was given when he was born.

If not for a twisting family saga, the name Stevenson would be on the backs of the No. 9 jerseys that dotted the stands in Anaheim as the Ducks split with the Detroit Red Wings to reach Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals tomorrow in Detroit. The series is tied at two games apiece.

The leading rookie scorer in the NHL this season was known as Bobby Stevenson when he skated on the ice in Pennsauken and played roller hockey in Voorhees. The kid already had the burgeoning skills that would make him the No. 2 pick, behind Sidney Crosby, in the 2005 NHL draft.

At 12, he disappeared, moving to Southern California under an assumed name with his mother to join his father - then a fugitive after skipping bail on felony charges that included attempted murder for beating her in an incident of domestic violence in 1997.

Melody Stevenson asked that the charges against her husband be dropped. But the prosecutors didn't relent, and Bob Stevenson - now legally Bob Ryan - later served more than four years in prison after he was apprehended in California and pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and jumping bail.

The story is as striking for its elements of resilience and forgiveness as it is for the brutality of the crime.

"What I did was wrong," said Bob Ryan, a former boxer who battered his wife in a fit of anger after he had been drinking and called the incident "a terrible beating."

Melody - still his wife - knows how difficult people find that to understand.

"I don't know how to explain it, other than that we were a very loving family - we always were - and Bobby was our life, both our lives," said Melody, who spent several days in the hospital but said her injuries were not as severe as paramedics initially suspected.

"After the incident was the only time we thought, 'OK, this is over,' " she said. "We both thought it was over for a couple of months, maybe.

"But we felt very strongly about raising him as a family. Unfortunately, we weren't able to do that all the time. It was about love, all the way around."

Last week, their story came, if not full circle, at least to a point of satisfaction and pride. Ryan's parents drove from their home in Cherry Hill to Detroit to watch their son - a 31-goal scorer during the regular season who scored four more times in the first-round upset of San Jose - play the defending Stanley Cup champions.

"It's a very simple scenario," the player's father said. "The reason we reconciled, the reason we kept it together, was Bobby."

At 22, Bobby Ryan is both a gifted and affable young man, one who answers questions directly and tends to end interviews by saying "my pleasure," no matter how difficult the subject.

"The thing about that, I never even saw any of the injuries," said the 6-foot-2 right winger, a 10-year-old the night of the attack who slept through it after returning from a Flyers game. "I was told Mom was under the weather for a couple of days and was away. But I got a sense of what happened.

"I was a little too young at the time to understand all the finer points of it. They never put that on me."

Bobby still calls Cherry Hill home, but left behind the world he knew when he and his mother moved to California to join his father.

"It meant we got to be together again," Bobby said. "There were plenty of days when you weren't really sure how it was all going to unfold.

"It was one of those things where, if she hadn't done that, then we wouldn't have come here, we wouldn't have gone through all the appropriate stuff for me to get to where I am," Bobby said. "It was a huge sacrifice for her."

Melody did what she had learned to do before. She got jobs at a couple of rinks, and Bobby got free ice time. She got a job working for an airline at Los Angeles International Airport, and Bobby got discounts when he traveled with his team.

Playing in a Southern California hockey community that had expanded exponentially after Wayne Gretzky was traded to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988, Bobby won two national championships with the Los Angeles Junior Kings, shrugging off questions from players who recognized him from his days as a traveling youth roller-hockey player from New Jersey.

"Nobody ever really challenged it when I said, 'I'm not that guy,' " Bobby said. "It was kind of weird. They would ask me, and I'd say, 'No.' Kids were kids. We were 12. They were like, 'OK.' "

After his father was apprehended and sent to prison in 2000, Melody and Bobby remained in Southern California for several years before moving to Ontario, Canada, where he played junior hockey for Owen Sound, with Melody staying the first year to give him stability.

No one expected Ryan to play junior hockey for four years, but he was sent back twice as the Ducks waited for him to get in shape and commit to their defensive expectations.

He got his first taste of the NHL last season, but spent much of it at Portland of the American Hockey League and was assigned to Iowa of the AHL out of training camp this season - partly a victim of salary-cap issues.

"We always knew he would play in the NHL," Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. "The question was, we want him to play for 15 years, not five years."

Called up because of an injury in November, he stuck spectacularly. The name Ryan, which he legally took in 2004, is the one that will go in the record book.

His mother longs for the day - a day that appears to be coming - when Bobby's accomplishments outshine their complicated past.

"We've gone on with our lives," she said. "It does hurt our family. I understand it is news, but it's old news."

The player's father knows his son's legacy will be a name that is not their family's original name.

"That doesn't matter to me," said Bob Ryan, now a personal trainer at Bob Clarke's Gym in Cherry Hill.

How much more than a name was lost that night in 1997 is more difficult to say.

"I worry about that every day," the father said. "That never goes away."