Native hockey teams from around Alberta and British Columbia gathered over the weekend at the Cochrane Arena to take part in the Lance Dodginghorse Memorial Tournament.
The event, which is in its final year, had 11 teams participate, with many former professional and semi-professional players taking part such as Wacey Rabbit (Boston Bruins draft pick in 2005), Bridget Laqquette (Team Canada), Jesse Astles (Kelowna Rockets, Saskatoon Blades, Tri-City Americans), and Cochrane Generals alumni Richie Wesley, Andrew Kaquitts, and Preston Hunter, among others.
“It’s a memorial tournament for my late brother,” said tournament organizer Kyle Dodginghorse. “We originally had it at the Sarcee 7 Chiefs Sportsplex on T’suu T’ina Nation, but that was torn down to make way for the ring road to go through our reserve, so we took it to Cochrane this year.
“Spray Lake and the Cochrane arena were very gracious hosts, and their arena staff was very accommodating. We can’t thank them enough for letting us hold our tournament here.”
Entry was $800 per team, and all money from the proceeds went to 50/50 draws, and door prizes, as well as cash prizes for the winners.
“All of the money we raised goes towards the prizes,” Dodginghorse confirmed. “We also have to make enough money to go back towards offsetting the cost of the tournament.”
Did he expect as many teams to show up as in previous years?
“We originally had 12 teams, but one pulled out,” he said. “We had 12 the last time we hosted this so that was the general number we were looking for when we started the tournament.
“We could have gone with more, but with the amount of ice we had, this was the biggest number we could accommodate.”
This year, the Toe Dragons clinched their second tournament victory, with the event’s Most Valuable Player award going to Garret Montour of the Dragons. The Chase Blades (from B.C.) finished second while LDH44 (Lance DodgingHorse 44) – made up of close friends of Lance’s who grew up playing hockey with him – finished third.
“This is our last year of doing it,” Dodginghorse said of the event. “We’ve done it for four years, and in our culture we do something in a memorial for that amount of time. Last year, we had no arena, so we just did a feast, but this time around, we decided we’d do one last tournament.”
