"Bobby Ryan never has run from his yesterdays.

They insist on chasing him anyway.

The official Olympic biographies are normally terse: Sven Svensen, 28, Norway, ski jumper, Oslo. That type of thing.

But Ryan's official Olympic biography recites chapter and verse on his childhood ordeal. It's the story that followed him through junior hockey and into the NHL. It did so primarily because he told it himself.

"There's certainly no skeletons in my closet," Ryan said Monday, when the U.S. team convened at the arena for its first practice.

The Cliff's Notes version: Bob Stevenson beat up his wife, Melody, one night in Cherry Hill, N.J. and fled to California before his trial date. Melody and 10-year-old Bobby met him there. Stevenson changed his name to Shane Ryan, and Bobby became Bobby Ryan. Stevenson was arrested and spent four years in jail."