This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is our American stories, and we tell all kinds of stories here on the show.

This next story is the story of Sean Pronger,

and he was a journeyman NHL player who got his start on the hockey beat

at a very young age, close to home.

Here's Sean with his story.

To talk about the Gretzky chapter, we're going to have to go back to where it all began.

Dryden, Ontario, Canada.

I grew up in Dryden.

Great town, love living there.

But if you don't like hockey and you don't like ice fishing, you probably aren't going to enjoy your time in Dryden because it is remote.

It's four hours from the nearest city, four hours from Winnipeg, four hours from Thunder Bay.

And it's winter there for about eight to nine months.

And we're talking real winter when it's 30 to 40 below is the norm.

And so there's not a lot to do if you don't enjoy those two activities.

And fortunately for me, my brother loved playing and all of our buddies love playing.

So we would play on our driveway.

We would play on the street in front of our house, and we had an outdoor rink a block away.

And so we played hockey non-stop.

But I think the real games were down in our basement at 161 St. Charles Street.

Like every town in Canada or every city, hockey net in Canada Canada was a big deal and everything kind of just stopped.

You know, all plans were made before or after Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday nights.

...