GLENDALE, Ariz. — If anyone knows the importance of having a home, it's Ryan O'Reilly.
As a kid growing up in the prairie town of Brucefield, Ontario, with parents who both served as social workers for the province, O'Reilly shared his house with 49 foster kids over the years. Making them feel welcome was naturally instilled in him by Brian and Bonnie O'Reilly.
O'Reilly lived in Denver for the first six years of his NHL career. But it always felt too much like a residence, not a home. While he loved the city and its people and still has nice things to say about the Colorado Avalanche, the fact is that things never worked out for the long term. Home to him now is Buffalo, where the seventh-year All-Star center has the kind of long-term contractual security (seven years, $52.5 million) he could never find with the Avs.
Almost as important, O'Reilly says, he feels he plays a bigger role in the Sabres dressing room than he ever did in Colorado, freer to be the kind of locker-room and on-ice leader he felt he never quite could with the Avs.
On Wednesday night, O'Reilly will play his first game at the Pepsi Cen ...
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Article written by Adrian Dater
Ryan O’Reilly Finding the Home in Buffalo He Never Found in Colorado
January 18th, 2016 by Adrian Dater Leave a reply »
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