If you look closely, you'll notice that the guy who will be walking out to drop the puck for the ceremonial faceoff at Thursday night's Hamilton Bulldogs' game has a bit of a limp.

That's the miracle of this story. Not that he has one. Rather, how closely you have to look to see it.

Eleven months ago, the idea that anything close to physically normal would be possible for Riley Dunda required more optimism than many could dare to muster.

Even if he believed it.

"I knew it was going to come," he says. "I didn't really know, I just knew I wasn't going to stop until it happened."

You may remember the story. On May 3, 2014, Riley was watching sports highlights on TV at his home in Grimsby when he got up to get some food. A second or two later, the Hamilton Red Wings' winger collapsed.

The 18-year-old had suffered a massive stroke that left him basically unable to speak and left his right side weakened almost to the point of uselessness. It was devastating.

The following few months were brutal. Naturally, he felt robbed of a big part of his future. Hockey was going to be his ticket to university and then, who knows where?

"I remember sitting on the bed thinking, 'What the hell's going on? Why did this happen to me?'" he says. "Obviously there was a different plan for me."

That new plan started becoming evident in rehab. Older stroke survivors saw him working so hard to recover and told him he was an inspiration. A young boy at the gym came up and asked for a picture. Riley became the local face of stroke recovery, leading charity walks, throwing out first pitches at a Hamilton Cardinals' game, skating onto the ice prior to a Red Wings' game and turning Fight Riley Fight into a battle cry throughout the hockey community.

Then incredibly, another young hockey player from the area — Ben Fox — also suffered a stroke. The odds of something like this happening once were long. Twice? Ludicrous. But it happened. Suddenly, Riley had even more reason to accelerate his recovery.

"I wanted to get better quicker so I could help him and other kids who'd had strokes," he says.

Today he's skating again. A couple months ago NHLer Brian McGrattan brought him to hang out and skate with the Calgary Flames. He's walking so well. All his feeling is back. His arm is getting stronger. His speaking is normally again.

On Thursday night, the Bulldogs will play the Chicago Wolves. Game-worn sweaters from the game will be auctioned with proceeds going to the Hamilton Health Sciences Stroke Rehabilitation Program.

Riley still plans to return to hockey someday somewhere. In the meantime, he's studying economics at Niagara College and is looking at getting into scouting. The ultimate dream would be calling hockey games on TV.

Yet his true role has become that of example, leader and inspiration for others who've found the rug pulled out from under their lives, too. He's showing that bad breaks don't have to be permanent. He's finding his own attitude changing. Like that anger he carried for the stroke for so long.

"The past four or five (months) there hasn't been that hatred," he says.

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A month or two after his stroke, Riley was asked to join a group riding a massive multi-person bike as a fundraiser for stroke victims. He agreed. But, his mother had to hold his right hand on the handle because he couldn't, and his brother had to keep his right foot on the pedal because it kept slipping off.

Two days ago, his mother received a text from one of Riley's friends. It was a video of him riding a bicycle.

By himself.