Gary J. Surette to be remembered with second tournament

Event scheduled for April 7-8 at Mariners Centre in Yarmouth

Early next month another hockey tournament will be held in Yarmouth in memory of Gary J. Surette, the Yarmouth County native and former local minor hockey coach who died in 2015 of cancer.

As a follow-up to the tournament that took place a year ago – the first to be held in Surette’s memory – the plan is to have a four- team round- robin event Saturday and Sunday, April 7-8, at the Mariners Centre.

“After last year’s tournament, players told us that it was a wellrun weekend and that they had a great time,” said Shelley LeBlanc, president of the Gary J. Surette Memorial Association, the Yarmouth-based group organizing the event. “We’re aiming for another great weekend of hockey.”

It will be a lower-key event this time than it was last year, when the weekend of the inaugural Gary Surette tournament opened with a special Friday night game featuring some former National Hockey League stars.

The game was a fundraiser for a couple of cancer charities. The association has yet to announce what it will do for a fundraiser this year.

On the weekend of April 7-8, therefore, the focus will be on hockey and on remembering Gary Surette, who died in December 2015 as a result of melanoma – skin cancer – having spread to his brain. Shelley LeBlanc, president of the Gary J. Surette Memorial Association – who was a good friend of Surette’s – says tournament organizers are “aiming for another great weekend of hockey.”

Surette had been active on the Yarmouth minor hockey scene, coaching at several different levels in the 1990s and 2000s.

After Surette’s death, Brian Comeau – with whom Surette had coached – suggested a tournament be held in his memory.

The Gary J. Surette Memorial Association is a non-profit organization formed by friends and family of Gary J. Surette. It seeks to raise funds to help ease the burden felt by local cancer patients and their families.

With no game on tap this year with former NHLers, the association is considering other fundraising possibilities.

Meanwhile, players interested in taking part in this year’s tournament are invited to contact the association by email: info@ memorial4gary.ca.