Hockey Fest II - Message Wrap-up Message

Hello to all Hockey Fest Players:

From all appearances, Hockey Fest II was a very successful event! Players from different teams enjoyed meeting each other during their Friendly Games on the ice, and socializing off the ice. The Dinner /Dance on Saturday was enjoyed by couples from all over the city. And we raised more than four thousand dollars for Rene Faucher and his family. Our thanks to everyone who participated, and in particular to the Organizers of the 12 teams who entered.

The Skills Contests were a new innovation this year, thanks to the hard work of Larry Pickard and a host of volunteers. The Team Skills Trophy was won by the Orleans Whitehawks, and the trophy was presented to Yves Patenaude at the D/D on Saturday. The individual winners were Jock Lewis of the Old Buzzards (Gold), Dave Williams of the RA Power Bars (Silver), and Bob Tompkins of the Elder Skatesmen East (Bronze). Among the goalies, Paul Simard of Norm Wing's Silver Foxes took the Gold. Congratulations to all the Skills winners!

The Raffle for the Hockey Poster was won by Barry Craven of the Silver Buzzards. Congratulations, Barry! Our thanks to Peter Whitaker and his fiancee Manon, who donated the poster, and to Peter who sold raffle tickets throughout the week. And thanks to all those who purchased tickets!

The proceeds of the HockeyFest will go to Rene Faucher and his family. Rene suffered a paralyzing injury during a hockey game a few months ago. The total includes proceeds from the 50-50 draws (thank you, Mike Donoghue, for your outstanding work!), the Poster Raffle, and the donation from the Draft Pub (thank you, Greg Ewen!). I spoke with Rene and told him how successful the HockeyFest had been, and he expressed his appreciation for our support. We plan to present the proceeds to Rene and his wife Dianne in the next few weeks.

The HockeyFest was on the CTV news (Terry Marcotte) Friday evening Apr-09 around 6:40 pm. The link for Never Too Old is
http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20080319/ott_senioroftheweek_080328/20080319/?hub=OttawaHome . Have a look to see some players, and interviews with Moe Marchand and Yves Patenaude. Thanks to Moe for arranging this!

The teams (and team reps) were: Elder Skatesmen (ES) West 70+ (Ken Morin), Old Buzzards 70+ (Gerry McLelland), Silver Foxes I (NW) 70+ (Mike O'Brien), Silver Foxes II (RS) 70+ (Ron Sweeney), ES Centre (Dom Herrick), Silver Buzzards (Al Foubert), Silver Foxes I (NW) (Norm Rosolen), Silver Foxes II (RS) (Ron Sweeney), Bytown Bandits (Brian MacMillan), ES East (Dave Reeve), Orleans White Hawks (Joe Verbruggen), and RA Power Bars (Bruce Cappon).

We would like to receive comments and suggestions from the players so we can make next year's HockeyFest even better. Dave Reeve plans to contact the team Reps to solicit feedback - please let your Rep know your thoughts!

Again, thanks to all who participated in this year's HockeyFest!!

Ken Morin
for the HockeyFest Organizing Committee