"He's a warrior"

Forbes MacPherson has often said the hockey world is generally surrounded by good people and among those people are a few extraordinary individuals.

Matt Boyle, 22, is one of those extraordinary individuals, says the head coach of the UPEI Panthers men's hockey team.

Few could reach the level of dedication the second-year Panthers defenceman and business student has shown while playing for the team.

And that point was perhaps best illustrated during home games against Saint Mary’s and St. FX last weekend.

Partway through Friday’s game against the Huskies, a stray SMU shot struck Boyle in the face, knocking out seven teeth and breaking his upper palate.

Now, a week later, Boyle is sporting a flint in the front of his mouth close to two or three other teeth he suspects he’ll have to get pulled because of the injury.

While that injury could be devastating for some players, Boyle is able to simply shrug it off.

“It wasn’t that bad, it happened quick,” he said with a grin during an interview Thursday with The Guardian. “It’s pretty small on a big scale so I’m not too worried about it. There’s a lot worse that could have happened.”

 Minutes after the injury, Boyle planned on returning to the ice before he realized how bad the situation actually was.

Given Boyle’s determination, it was no surprise the player was back on the ice for Saturday’s game against St. FX and was later named UPEI’s male athlete of the week.

While Boyle was wearing a full-face visor, that was the only difference from his usual game face. The hard work paid off with a win over the X-Men, completing a crucial weekend sweep in the highly competitive AUS conference.

But what was more impressive than Boyle actually playing, was the attitude he showed after the injury leading up to Saturday’s game, said MacPherson.

“One of his comments to me was, ‘what am I going to do coach? Just go home and lay in bed and feel sorry for myself? If anything, I might as well go to the game and it will take my mind off the injury for two or three hours,’” he said. “The common person doesn’t say that. Most people say ‘poor me’ and he just doesn’t think that way.”

To put it simply, sitting this one out was not an option for Boyle.

“I just felt it was the right thing to do,” said the defenceman. “The game of hockey has been good to get your mind off things, so believe it or not, that was kind of a two hour break away from everything.”

“I wasn’t in too much discomfort so that was good. And it was good on top of that that we got the win.”

Boyle expressed his loyalty to the team during a previous interview with The Guardian in December 2011.

He talked candidly about growing up in Charlottetown and playing minor hockey in the city. When he played with the Charlottetown Islanders major midget team, his dressing room was just down the hall from the Panthers.

Boyle was eventually drafted by the Moncton Wildcats of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League for his first three years of junior before playing for the Lewiston Maineiacs (QMJHL) and later with the Texas Brahmas (Central Hockey League).

But he never forgot about returning home to play as a Panther.

MacPherson noted that Boyle was his first recruit as head coach of the team.

“We’re fortunate that he’s from P.E.I. because this is where he wanted to go to school and it was important for him to play for the Panthers,” he said. “I know this can be a crazy analogy, but he’s literally a guy you would want to go to war with. He’s a guy who’s going to lay it on the line every single night and he’s a battler. He’s a warrior.”

The six-foot-two Boyle has racked up three assists for UPEI this season but the defenceman excels in areas that aren’t shown on a boxscore.

A strong stay-at-home defenceman, Boyle knows his job is to protect a lead. He’s a fixture for UPEI’s penalty killing and is often put on the ice for the last minute of a period when the Panthers are leading.

“His job is to protect the lead and play on the other team’s top players. He’s a shutdown guy and that’s what he does,” said MacPherson.

Those qualities will be crucial for the Panthers when they face both Saint Mary’s and St. FX again this weekend.

UPEI will play the Huskies tonight in Halifax before facing St. FX tomorrow in Antigonish. Game times are 7 p.m.

The two games are critical for UPEI, presenting a range of outcomes that could see their regular season record jump to 12-6, or brought down to 10-8.

Boyle said the team will have to bring the same mentality as they did last weekend, knowing that every game counts with only a dozen matchups left before playoffs.

“It’s a really short season, so we want to climb up to the top,” he said. “Every game is do or die now and that’s the way we have to go into them.”