Hollweg's personality looks like a fit

Ryan Hollweg didn't have your typical hockey upbringing.

Hollweg - on his way to becoming a fan favourite at the Air Canada Centre for his agitating brand of hockey - was born in Downey, Calif., in 1983. Hardly a hockey hotbed.

Hollweg's German-born, Brazilian-raised father, Victor, didn't know what to call those boot-thingies that hockey players wore on their feet when they're on the ice.

But when Wayne Gretzky was traded in 1988 to the Los Angeles Kings, Hollweg simply had to play hockey. Good thing his mother, Helen, was from British Columbia, knew what skates were, and where to find hockey arenas.

"She called up a rink and asked if they had hockey," said Hollweg. "Me and my brother (Bryce) hadn't put on a pair of skates or seen the game of hockey before and they were like: `Okay, you guys were on the team.' Without even practising. There was nobody in it."

One game, and Hollweg was hooked.

"It was always my dream," said Hollweg. "It was always what I wanted to do. When I was a little kid, every school report I'd write, or every picture that I drew, was about being a professional hockey player."

While the minor hockey situation in southern California has improved immensely in the post-Gretzky era, it was difficult at the time for Hollweg and his younger brother to get enough games to improve. There simply weren't that many arenas or teams around. But it's what the brothers wanted, so the parents pursued it.

"We were travelling every weekend to play in tournaments, all over the Pacific Northwest," he said. "We'd drive an hour and a half just to get some ice time. Our mom would pick us up from school and we'd go to the public rink just to skate. It was a lot of sacrifice."

Hollweg left home at 13, pursuing hockey in the San Francisco area for a year in an experimental program that drew the likes of Stanislav Chistov from Russia.

He was given a choice of heading to an American prep school, but chose Canadian junior hockey and landed in Langley of the Tier II BCHL before jumping to Medicine Hat of the WHL in 1999.

"It was tough," Hollweg said of living away from home as a teenager. "(My parents) always knew what I wanted to do. They were 100 per cent behind me."

Hollweg's brother would go on to graduate from West Point, where he was captain of the military college's hockey team and now serves in the U.S. military as a communications officer.

Hollweg was drafted by the New York Rangers, where he amassed five goals, seven assists and 311 penalty minutes over three seasons. Hollweg insisted he's got better hands than a typical enforcer.

"I used to score goals quite a bit," said Hollweg. "But coming into this league, I had to do what I had to do to keep my spot. I'm capable of more offensively, it's just a matter of opportunity."

Leafs general manager Cliff Fletcher acquired the 5-11, 210-pounder over the summer from the Rangers for a fifth-round pick. Coach Ron Wilson envisions Hollweg on a third or fourth line with speedsters Dominic Moore and Jamal Mayers.

"I see them forechecking, and being an energy line," said Wilson. "He (Hollweg) gets in on the forecheck, he finishes his checks. The Rangers probably have an overabundance of that, that's why he was available to us. We don't have enough of that."

Hollweg said he can't play the game any other way.

"I love to play that way, get the fans into it," said Hollweg. "It's definitely part of who I am."