Ronald Johnson MacWallace III; Wool on Ice

[RJMW 121]

Ronald Johnson MacWallace III was born January 2, 1998 in Scotland to a single mother, Patricia. Despite being Ronald Johnson MacWallace III he is not the third of his name, his mother put III on the birth certificate because she thought it meant he was the third child. Ronald’s older brother is William William MacWallace II.

Ronald never knew his father as just months before he was born his father up and left one day to try and make it big as an international Bollywood movie star.

Ronald grew up in a village of no more than 300 people in the Scottish Highlands. Because of the size of the village he grew up in, there was never much to do aside from shear some sheep. Ronald never had access to a television and did not know what a smartphone was until he moved to Sweden after turning 14.

The most fun Ronald had as a kid was when he and his brother William found a box of old hockey magazines that his dad used to collect. He came to find out from his mother that his dad was Scotland’s number one hockey fan.

 

With this box of magazines came hours of entertainment for Ronald and his brother as they did not know what hockey was until they found the magazines and they were enthralled by its contents. As their joy for the sport grew, the two boys wanted desperately to start playing real games of hockey outside of their small living room.

This may come as a shock but the small town Ronald grew up in had a small indoor skating rink that was used by many tourists who were passing through the village while enjoying the scenery of the Scottish Highlands.

 

Ronald and William would take advantage of the small rink whenever it was empty. They would use homemade hockey sticks and would freeze sheep poo for pucks.

Despite having never seen a game of hockey in person, and not fully understanding any of the rules, they knew they could hit and that they had to shoot the puck into the net (in their case the net was a couple of bookbags mimicking posts).

 

After one winter of playing hockey by themselves, they were able to add a number of players to their little games, all of these “players” were actually just sheep the boys had snuck onto the ice. The sheep provided some incredible competition for the brothers to play against. Ronald learned how to use his somewhat average frame to throw huge hits on the sheep and his puckhandling developed strongly as he would deke around and weave through the sheep while keeping the frozen dung puck seemingly glued to his stick. The ethics of playing hockey against sheep, and throwing hits on them can be debated but the sheep seemed to love it.

When Ronald turned 14 he decided he wanted to fully pursue hockey so he and his mom moved to Sweden, leaving William and his sister in the Scottish Highlands. William did not wish to pursue a hockey career and would later follow in his dad’s footsteps to Bollywood.

 

Ronald and his mother settled down just outside of Stockholm where Ronald would look for any opportunity he could to play a full game against all human players.

His first few tryouts for U16 teams were a huge shock to Ronald, he was not up to par in many parts of the game as other players, but he still excelled in puckhandling and defence. Eventually, Ronald improved enough to land a spot on a U16 team and would begin playing real games. In his first couple of seasons, his game improved substantially to the point where he was one of the best 16-year-old players in Sweden, but there was still a glaring issue in his game, his passing.

When playing in Scotland Ronald rarely passed because the only options were his brother and some sheep who couldn’t receive any pucks so after a few years of playing in Sweden Ronald would still rarely make creative passes, and most passes he made were sloppy at best.

Fighting through his issues distributing the puck, Ronald landed a spot on AIK of the Allsvenskan. He worked with a great coach during his time there where he developed his passing to a level above league average, but still not amazing.

 

After another great showing in Sweden, MacWallace decided it would be best for his development and career if he moved to North America and continued his career in the VHLM. MacWallace is currently participating in the Junior Showcase Tournament as he gets used to the American game and learns the culture. He is working on becoming easier to understand as the Scottish accent mixed with his time in Sweden has made his voice incredibly thick and hard to understand for most people.

 

He hopes to have a strong performance in his first VHLM season as the draft inches ever closer.

 

Word count: 820ish

Edited March 21, 2023 by RJMW