An Edmonton-area hockey team held a special fundraising game Monday night to support the fight against cancer.
The Midget AA Maple Leafs said the game was unlike any others they’d played before as pictures of their loved ones who are fighting the disease, who beat it or who were killed by it, lined the rink.
“Just to know she’s there,” Chris Harnett said, thinking of his grandma, “it’s going to be more than just a hockey game tonight. It’s going to be really important to me.”
Each of his teammates wrote a few lines about who they were playing for and why in the game program.
“My grandma is up there,” Nicholas Lindsay said. “She passed away five years ago from stomach cancer. My game today is in honour of her.”
The teenage boys range in age from 16 to 18 and they each wore bright pink jerseys for Monday’s game. It’s an opportunity for them to give back.
“If you get them helping at a younger age, as they get older, they want to help more. They come back as coaches, mentors for the club – anything,” explained the club’s president, Rob Lindsay.
He said the pink game started a few years ago and was the players’ idea.
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“We feel like this is the least we can do to give back to the community,” Nicholas said.
This year’s game was especially personal, as the team opted to invite Rheanna Trepanier, a young girl battling brain cancer, to be their guest of honour.
Trepanier was diagnosed with four brain tumours last Halloween and was given a terminal diagnosis. Since then, she’s been checking off bucket-list items with her family.
“I know she’s a big hockey fan,” her mom Marissa Trepanier said. “She’s been really excited about today, to come and do this. This’ll be her first ever puck drop so she’s pretty excited.”
Rheanna said she was honoured the players asked her to come. She was also given a jersey with her name on it – signed by all the boys – as well as a bouquet of red roses.
She recently finished six weeks of radiation but had to stop her chemotherapy halfway through because it was doing too much damage to her immune system.
“It’s still day by day for us. It’s good when she has the good days. We’re still keeping busy. It definitely helps when we’re keeping busy and having fun,” Marissa said.
The players said Rheanna would be front of mind as they took to the ice.
“We just want her to know we’re here for her, we’re going to support her and help raise awareness for cancer,” Harnett said.
“Having her here, it makes us want to play a little harder and do the best we can for her,” Harnett’s teammate Nicholas added. “Anything we can to help her out.”
As a dad, Rob sees Rheanna helping the boys just as much as they’re helping her.
“You might not like a call out on the ice, but there’s bigger problems out there. You may not like someone at school, you might not like something your boss tells you you have to do, but when you look at it, there’s way bigger problems. Look at Rheanna (and) the battle she has to go through right now.”
The team was hoping to raise a few thousand dollars for the Alberta Cancer Foundation through pink game raffles and 50/50 draws.
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