STORRS — The last time he was back home, UConn’s Ryan Tattle had a chance to tour Vancouver Lodge, and he saw some of the dividends for all he has invested.
“In that Lodge, it hosts people that live in rural areas and don’t have access to cancer treatment,” Tattle says. “They put a library in there, and I thought that was super cool, to give people that are staying there away from their families a place to read, relax, reset. They also have a yoga garden, a rooftop little garden, and I thought that was cool.”
The Canadian Cancer Society funds these lodges in big cities, this one across from Vancouver General Hospital, one of many ways it advocates for research and awareness, and to help those fighting the disease and their families. Tattle, during his freshman year at UConn, joined their ranks. His mother, Joanne Tattle, died from cancer in November 2022, not long after she’d helped him move in on campus.
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“I saw the battle first-hand, I saw my Mom fight cancer for three years,” Tattle said, “and seeing that, it’s pretty motivating, because you don’t want other people to go through what you and your family went through; it’s such a terrible thing and affects so many people.”
At the same time, Greg Lapointe, one of Tattle’s teammates back home, was fighting stage three Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. He was moved to do something.
A year to the day his mother died, Tattle scored his first collegiate goal in 2023, and by then he and his father had started up “Score For Cancer,” gaining pledges for every goal and assist he scored for his junior hockey team in British Columbia, the Coquitlam Express. It’s expanded, annual benefit hockey games, and the “Movement is Medicine” challenge every March, where people gain pledges connected with individual workouts.
To date, Tattle, 24, has helped raise more than $188,000 for the Canadian Cancer Society. On Wednesday, he was named one of 12 national nominees among men’s and women’s college players, for the Hockey Humanitarian Award, which will be presented at the Frozen Four in April.
“A lot of people will do something out of grief, just emotion because it sounds like the right thing to do at the time,” Huskies coach Mike Cavanaugh said. “But in order to stay with it, that’s the true testament to somebody who’s still passionate about the cause. And I wouldn’t be surprised if, 10 years from now, he’s still doing it.”
Each year, Tattle gets a report from the Canadian Cancer Society, detailing where money has been spent. “One thing that keeps me coming back is seeing how many things they’ve made impacts on,” Tattle said. “The money we’ve raised isn’t millions and millions of dollars, but it goes into that pool.”
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The cause has been one part of Tattle’s years at UConn, which will come to an end this season. The on-ice goal has been bringing UConn hockey to national relevance. The latest checkpoint in that process is Friday and Saturday at Ingalls Rink in New Haven, where Yale will host CT Ice and the Huskies will defend their trophy.
A year ago, as UConn won it for the first time, and Tattle fashioned the weekend’s most memorable moment, scoring with one-half second left to beat Quinnipiac, ending the Huskies’ long losing streak against the perennial title contenders from Hamden. UConn defeated Sacred Heart the next night.
Tattle had left the team two days before the tournament, flying home to Port Moody, B.C., to attend his grandfather’s funeral.
“My Mom’s Dad had passed away the week prior and I wasn’t sure if I was going to make the service, it was a long way to travel, 3,000 miles,” Tattle said. “I talked to the coaches, and said I’d be back for the game, would just miss a day of practice. I left Wednesday, got home, got to see everyone, woke up Thursday, went to the service, had lunch, or an early dinner, went right to the airport and flew back here overnight. Got a quick nap at the hotel then met the guys at the rink.”
So you get the idea, Tattle, a 5-foot-10 and 180-pound winger, has made a career of being there for his teammates, a life of being there for others.
“Just watching a little kid come into the locker room,” Cavanaugh said, “whether it’s a win or a loss, how he treats that kid. He just lives it daily, he comes by it naturally.”
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This season, Tattle, who has eight goals and 10 assists, moved up to the first line with Joey Muldowney and Jake Percival and has helped the Huskies to a 13-7-3 record, 9-5-1, good for first place, in Hockey East. The Huskies are in a fight to get back to the NCAA Tournament. The conference, after sending six teams to the NCAA Tournament last year, did not have its usual showing in nonconference play, and will be pressed to get multiple teams in the Field of 16 come March. UConn is 19th in the NCAA Percentage Index (NPI), the official metric for tournament selection, so two wins at CT Ice, particularly if one is over Quinnipiac, ninth in NPI, would be a big deal.
“One, it’s a pride thing,” Tattle said. “You want to be the best team in Connecticut. We talked about it being a state championship, being able to hold that over the other teams for a year. And two, it’s great practice for the NCAA Tournament, where we want to be ultimately. You’re playing teams back-to-back, different opponents, and practicing winning, getting comfortable in those situations. It’s a really good test for our team, and we want to be in those tough games in March and April.”
Last season, CT Ice was a springboard for UConn to reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time. The Huskies defeated Quinnipiac in the first round, before losing in overtime to Penn State.
“We’re hungry, all the guys coming back have that feeling,” said Tattle, who has 29 goals, 31 assists in 106 career games at UConn, “we were so close and that sting of defeat is still with us, and we roped the new guys in pretty quick and everybody’s really bought in to our system, our process. We know our script, what it takes to win.”