St. Timothy High School hosted its third annual ball hockey tournament on May 24 in order to raise funds for the Sheldon Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre. Kennedy, a former member of the Swift Current Broncos of the Western Hockey League, as well as the National Hockey League’s Detroit Red Wings, Calgary Flames and Boston Bruins, devoted his post hockey career to child abuse prevention and education after he dealt with sexual abuse growing up. Along with his business partner, Wayne McNeil, Kennedy owns and operates Respect Group Inc., which provides training to and empowerment tools to help thousands of people involved in amateur sport and education systems prevent bullying, harassment and abuse. "The tournament was an idea that came forward from (student) Isaiah Springer in regards to the Sheldon Kennedy game (the Sheldon Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre (SKCAC) Benefit Charity Hockey game that takes place in December). Through sports performance class and a couple other avenues in the building, we kind of piggybacked on the game from Christmas time," said St. Timothy teacher and organizer Kevin MacLellan on how the tournament gets started. "So how it works is we get teams from junior and senior high that they make on their own, we run a little round robin and the team that wins out of junior high and the senior high kids will play the teachers at the end of the day for the final game. Last year and this year, we incorporated a barbecue and concession where all the proceeds go towards the Sheldon Kennedy Centre, as well as the entry fee ... all the kids pay $10 each to play, which is then added to the total amount we raised from the game at Christmas time." "Predominately, every class came out at some point over the course of the day, during classes, lunch time, breaks, whatever. There were lots of people just hanging around watching, having a good time and enjoying the sun ... even a few parents stopped in to see how things were going so that's really great to see. It's more of an in-house event than the game at the rink but even with that, everyone was here supporting us and having a good time." MacLellan also highlighted the fact that this event would not be going on, had there not been a wealth of support from a group of students. "Isaiah and Elijah Springer were huge in organizing it and then Hannah Airey and Rachel Kraft did a lot of work in regards to the concession as well," MacLellan said. "They were the big cogs in the wheel for sure ... it was something we wanted to do at the end of the year. Isaiah came up with the idea a couple years ago and he and myself have taken the reins on it the last few years. He's done a lot of work with it. It's more his project and I've just lent a guiding hand." The school has raised more than $850 from the tournament on Thursday, adding to the more than $2,000 raised during the annual Christmas classic. "With the seven teams, it equalled to roughly $600 to $700 depending on how many players were on each team and then the concession, we usually make between $200 and $300. We knew we'd be around the $800 mark but there's still some food that hasn't been sold so that number could actually be even higher," MacLellan said. "All in all, with the benefit game we're well above what we raised last year ($2,300) so we should be approaching $3,000 when everything is all said and done." While St. Timothy played a big part in doing the fundraising, MacLellan said that the school would allow the professionals over at the Advocacy Centre to determine where the funds may go. "They have a lot of options in there (at the Advocacy Centre) to comfort and occupy kids. Whether it's meeting rooms and even food, they have toys that they give to children that go in there and also have gaming consoles for older kids that are there," MacLellan said. "To be honest, we weren't really concerned in saying what the money was going to be used for, we just thought it was a worthwhile cause to donate towards. We'll let them make their professional decisions from there and to decide where it goes." As for the tournament itself, a group of senior high students handed the teachers their first ever loss during the final in a hard fought one-goal game.
