St. Thomas students hit the streets for charity hockey tourney

A love of hockey and a class assignment helped a group of Grade 10 students at St. Thomas High School talk classmates and teachers into coming to school on a day off.

A school credo that community service be a part of student life sees every Grade 10 student organize a charity fundraiser or give their time at their school’s annual health fair as a matter of curriculum, and Monday afternoon, one of those class projects took on a special feeling.

The group of students from Debra Barry’s Grade 10 ethics class — Michael Tremis, Luke Elliott, Greg Bass, Chris Schmezle, Luke Brunet and Michael Boriero — organized a weeks-long street-hockey tournament among students and teachers at the school that culminated Monday with the finals — which drew teachers and students to the school on a professional day.

With 18 teams signed up and $7 per player for each of the six-member team, the organizers expected to clear $1,000 to give to the Montreal Canadiens Children’s Foundation. Canadiens forwards Garth Murray and Aaron Downey were on hand Monday afternoon to pick up the cheque.

The group got the idea for the fundraiser by talking about what often comes naturally to Montrealers as the temperature starts to drop: hockey.

“�We’re all hockey nuts,� Tremis said. “We started the project in September, and it just kind of come about because we just all love talking about hockey here at St. Thomas.�

The group managed to talk Stinger Sport into donating six Sher-Wood feather-lite hockey sticks for the winning team and they bought six Canadiens souvenir pucks to give to the runners-up. Still, the attraction of the Montreal Canadiens brought more interest than the tournament might otherwise have garnered.

“We got a lot of people coming out because of them,� Brunet said. “The Montreal Canadiens are a pretty hot topic of conversation around here.�

— Marc Lalonde