Sports
Ryan Kesler
born 1984 · ice hockey player
Livonia-born center and Selke Trophy winner who grew up playing Detroit-area youth hockey before a long NHL career, mostly with the Vancouver Canucks.
- Born
Livonia, Michigan
age 42- Birth name
- Ryan James Kesler
- Detroit years
- 1984–2003
- Field
- Sports
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Kesler was born and raised in Livonia, Michigan, where his father coached hockey and ran a local hockey school he attended every summer as a boy. He played minor hockey for Detroit-area clubs including Compuware, Honeybaked and Little Caesars, idolizing fellow Livonia native Mike Modano. He chose the USA Hockey National Team Development Program and then Ohio State partly to stay close to home, before a nineteen-year NHL career spent mostly with the Vancouver Canucks and later the Anaheim Ducks, where he won the Selke Trophy as the league's best defensive forward in 2011. He kept ties to Michigan after his playing days, living part of the year in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield. In 2025 he was charged in Michigan with misdemeanor criminal sexual conduct and pleaded not guilty; the case was still pending as of the source used here.
Highlights
- Born and raised in Livonia, Michigan
- Played youth hockey for Detroit-area clubs including Compuware and Little Caesars
- Won the Selke Trophy as the NHL's top defensive forward in 2011
- Spent 10 seasons with the Vancouver Canucks before finishing his career in Anaheim
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · 1990s
Livonia Hockey Association
Status being checked
The local youth hockey program his father coached and where Kesler played as a boy.