Home / News / TJ Oshie on his number being retired by Warroad High: ‘My only regret is that I didn’t move here until I was 15’

TJ Oshie on his number being retired by Warroad High: ‘My only regret is that I didn’t move here until I was 15’

By Ian Oland

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July 31, 2022 4:11 pm

TJ Oshie officially had his number 19 retired by Warroad High School on Saturday night.

At a ceremony at The Gardens Arena, Oshie saluted the town that helped turn him into a star beginning his sophomore year in high school.

“City of Warroad, this is the most special place for any kid to grow up in,” Oshie said tearing up. “My only regret is that I didn’t move here until I was 15.”

Oshie spent his childhood growing up in Everett, Washington, before moving to Warroad partly to advance as a hockey player. Oshie’s second cousin, Henry Boucha (graduated 1969), starred at Warroad as a hockey player and had his number retired there while his Uncle Max (graduated 1948) found great success, too.

“I remember my last year [in Washington], the state tournament was only three teams because there was only three bantam teams in the state,” Oshie said to The Rink Live podcast. “My last two years there, we had to play in a British Columbia hockey league. So we had to play in Vancouver every other weekend. That was just the way it was. Typically my family couldn’t come and I’d jump in the team bus or jump in with another family and they’d drive me up there. It was tough. I was driving an hour and 15 minutes to the rink. With traffic it’d take a little longer. We would practice during the week usually after 9pm and then on Friday afternoon or Saturday morning we’d drive up to BC come back Sunday and do it all again. It was rough. When we moved here and we realized I could just walk to the rink and skate whenever I wanted, and didn’t have to pay $20 for 40 minutes of ice before school, it was kind of a no brainer for me.”

Oshie added, “I remember I came out here for a hockey camp, the summer before I actually moved out here, to see if it’d be somewhere we’d want to live. I remember seeing these guys skate on the ice — I think it was incoming sophomores coming on up — these were literally the best hockey players I had ever skated with, this high school. Seeing these guys going around, I was like ‘Gosh, it’d be so cool to skate like these guys.’ It was just the coolest thing to come from a very large town where hockey is the last thing on everybody’s mind to come to Warroad where hockey is just a way of life here and everyone rallies around — not just the hockey team — but all the youth sports in general. Playing in this rink here that I’m in now, at the Gardens, this was my NHL. This was kind of the dream for me. So cool to be able to live that out.”

Oshie became the fourth player to have his number retired in Warroad High School history joining David Christian (no. 3), Billy Christian (no. 10), and Henry Boucha (no. 16).

Oshie played three seasons for the Warroad Warriors, leading the team to two state titles. Warroad went undefeated his senior year and Oshie, one of the most dominant players in the state, scored an astonishing 100 points (38g, 62a) in 31 games. He also chipped in 85 points his junior season.

Earlier in the day, Oshie participated in Warroad’s annual celebrity golf tournament.

The city was also awarded Hockey Day Minnesota in 2024.

Headline photo: @warroadbrand/IG

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