He's from Vancouver but lives in Calgary. He played for Calgary last season but is now a Vancouver Canuck. It's all a little confusing, but one thing that is clear is that Byron Ritchie is thrilled to be coming home to play in the NHL after signing a free-agent contract with the team he grew up watching, back when he played minor hockey in North Delta.

"It's obviously very exciting. My family and friends are very excited and it's almost too good to be true to be playing in the National Hockey League in your hometown," Ritchie says from the other side of the Rockies, where he's lived and worked for the past couple of seasons. "Vancouver is home now, and really, I'm thrilled about it. It's a phenomenal city and it's an excellent hockey team. Looking through the NHL, there's no place I'd rather be."

And the Canucks are happy to have the 30-year-old centre who was drafted by Hartford back in 1995 and has spent time in the NHL in Carolina, Florida, and, most recently, the Stampede city. But the Flames didn't offer the veteran of 253 NHL games a contract, so Ritchie knew he'd be hunting for a new hockey home.

And on July 3 he found the one he wanted when the Canucks came calling.

"When Vancouver gave me a call, my heart started thumping a million miles a minute and I had to wait a couple of days after they called to get it [the contract] done," he says. "Those were nervous days, but once we got it done, I was thrilled. You always want to play on a winning team. It's not fun to play on a team that doesn't win very many games or make the playoffs. I've been down that road in Florida."

And it was while with the Panthers that Ritchie formed a friendship that will ease his transition when he walks through the door of the Canucks locker room. As well, he'll have some fences to mend. An in-your-face, won't-back-down-from-anyone approach to the game has made Ritchie one of those guys players hate to play against but love to have on their side. And with the Canucks-Flames rivalry as fierce as it has been the past couple of years, Ritchie has been a thorn in the side for many Canucks players. But the fact that he's already a pal of Roberto Luongo should be endorsement enough for his new teammates to take a liking to him in a hurry.

"I played with Louie for two-and-a-half years when I was in Florida, so I got to know him real well. He's a great guy and, obviously, one of the best goalies in the world, and he proved that this year in Vancouver. It's exciting to play with him again," says Ritchie, whose Canuck connections don't end with the star netminder. "I trained with Trevor Linden in the summers for a few years, so I know him well, and it won't take long to get to know the rest of the guys either."

Two of the guys Ritchie is looking forward to playing with most are Matt Cooke and Alex Burrows. They all know each other from many meetings in the corners and after the whistles–and have had plenty of lengthy discussions in the past while sitting in their respective penalty boxes.

Soon, though, they'll put all of that behind them and band together as Canucks to get into the heads of opponents and get other players off their games.

"It's an emotional, intense game, and I'm happy to be on their side so I don't have to be chasing them around or them chasing me around the ice," he says with a laugh. "It'll be fun to play with Cookie. He's a great player, he's an agitator as well, and I'm just looking forward to being on their side."

Ritchie is also looking forward to having the chance to chip in a little more offensively than he has before at this level. His modest eight-goal, 14-point season last year in Calgary was a career year for a guy who had been pigeonholed as a checker who wasn't expected to score. Yet Ritchie twice had 50 or more goals during a standout junior career in Lethbridge and scored 102 goals and 253 points in 60 games in his final year of bantam in Delta.

With Alain Vigneault's track record of rewarding strong play with increased ice time and rolling with guys who are holding the hot hand, Ritchie may find himself in more offensive situations than he has on other NHL teams. And if that turns out to be the case, well, that's just fine with him.

"I think in the past, the biggest thing was my confidence wasn't there when it came to the offensive side of the game," he says. "But last year, for some reason, I felt more confident, more comfortable carrying the puck, shooting the puck, so I'm hoping to add even more offence than I did last year and continue getting better. I've kind of done whatever it's taken to stay in the league. I feel this [past] year, when I had an opportunity to play, I proved I can still play a skill game, but definitely hard-working, grinding it out on the forecheck and solid defensively, is more my game now."

Having just returned from two months in Sweden (where his wife, Maria, is from), Ritchie will begin winding down his time in Cowtown. He figures he'll move his wife and year-old son to the Lower Mainland by early August to give them a chance to spend some time with family and friends here before he heads to his first training camp as a Canuck.

But, as fate would have it, the former Flame won't have to wait long to head back to the city he's currently calling home. The recently released NHL schedule revealed that Ritchie and the Canucks will skate into the Saddledome for their first road game and second game overall on October 6.

"Isn't that fitting? That couldn't be any better," he says, doing nothing to hide his anticipation of facing the Flames in a Canucks uniform for the first time.

Ritchie has a few last weeks to tidy up some loose ends in Calgary, and then he's coming home to take the next step in his hockey career. It's taken him a while to make a dream come true, but at long last, he's where he always wanted to be: back in Vancouver as a member of the Canucks.

Jeff Paterson is a sportscaster and talk-show host on Vancouver's all-sports radio, Team 1040. E-mail him at jeff.paterson@team1040.ca