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Just like last year, Senators right winger Bobby Ryan loaded up the RV for the 40-hour return to Ottawa from his summer home in Idaho last weekend.

Yet there was nothing routine about what he calls “the best and the hardest” summer of his life.

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For all the joy that he and wife, Danielle, experienced with the birth of their first child, a daughter named Riley, he also lost his mother, Melody, to liver cancer.

It was a crushing blow, given the remarkable relationship between the two.

For those who don’t know the astonishing story, Ryan’s father spent five years in prison, charged with aggravated assault and jumping bail— moving the family across the United States under an assumed name — after an ugly beating on Melody.

With his father in prison during Ryan’s formative years, Melody served as a single parent, at times working two jobs to keep him in hockey.

“Yes, a very bittersweet summer,” Ryan said following an informal skate at the Bell Sensplex Wednesday. “The baby comes and you’re counting your blessings every day … and then you get that call that you have to come home (to Philadelphia).”