The annual Crosscheck Cancer Hockey Tournament is now in its third year and the event continues to grow from its modest beginnings. Forty teams took part in this year’s event more than tripling the entrants from the inaugural tournament in 2012 in which twelve teams competed.
Following the loss of his mother to cancer, Dan Finot convinced some buddies to help him fight back against the disease by lacing up their skates and raising funds for cancer research.
“The inspiration was really my mother passing away and doing something in her honour,” said Finot, tournament founder. “Instead of shaving my head I thought ‘What can we do here?’, maybe combine hockey and raise funds to beat this terrible disease.”
The tournament was started by four guys who have been friends since childhood. Each of the organizers had been directly impacted by cancer.
Joey Calvitti says the tournament was intentionally named after one of the dirtiest infractions in hockey as a way to express the hostility the organizers hold towards the disease.
“What's the worst thing in hockey to get?” asked Calvitti. “It's a crosscheck. Not a slash, not a high stick, but a crosscheck right across the back. It's the most powerful point of contact. We want to do that to cancer!”
Tournament co-founder Patrick Sutherland says he’s impressed by the way Dan brought his fundraiser dream to fruition.
“Dan was actually talking quite a bit ‘We've gotta start something to fight cancer’, ‘We gotta do something’ and he's thinking of a hockey tournament. A hockey tournament?” recollects Sutherland. “One day he said let's go for some sushi and sit down and create a name and start this thing.”
The organizers had no idea the tournament would grow as fast as it did. The 2012 event raised $27,000 and this year the teams collected more than $100,000.
When Dan and Patrick asked Greg Gerritson to help organize the tournament, he accepted without hesitation. Greg’s father has battled cancer and Dan Finot's mother was like a second mother to him.
“We were always in the house and (she was) feeding us and always having a good time and it affected all of us in a different way,” said Greg of Dan’s mother. “Having a close friend for that many years, losing someone that close to them, it really gets you in the heart.”
A portion of the money raised during the 2013 tournament went to help cancer patients affected by flooding get to and from their scheduled cancer treatments.
“It's not just about raising money to beat it, it's to support people that need it at that time,” explains Dan.
For motivating his friends and hundreds of other hockey players to raise their sticks and crosscheck cancer, Dan Finot is this week’s Inspiring Albertan.
With files from CTV's Darrel Janz
