As all of our hockey community knows, we lost a member of the Lucan Hockey Family suddenly in October of 2019, and this article talks about one way in which Nick Smith will be honored annually within Lucan Minor Hockey. Please read the information below directly from Nick's family:
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We, Nick’s family are pleased to announce that we have partnered with Lucan Minor Hockey to create a memorial award in Nick's honour. The new "Heart and Hustle" award will be awarded to a Lucan Minor Hockey recipient each year that has demonstrated Nick's character traits of the game of hockey. Nick was a fierce competitor who brought heart, passion and protection of his teammates. Not only would we like this individual to be recognized for their on-ice efforts we will also look for individuals that have over come struggles of their own off the ice. Further, we would like to see this recipient a high achiever at school, as many of you may not have known Nick was always an honour student.
As we all know this hockey season was cut short and we have not announced the 2019-2020 season winner. We would like to take this opportunity to announce the first recipients of the "Heart and Hustle" Award. Although this year was not an individual effort, we would still like to honour these young individuals, but not as individuals but as a team. This past year this group of young players set out on a task to honour Nick for their season. This started out as raising awareness in our community and each community the team would play in, this group also looked within themselves and the struggles of their own to create more importance to a season than just hockey. This team went above and beyond the regular season of hockey and have created more conversations about mental health and I am sure they will continue. This group of players, coaches, managers and families came together to provide large donations to several charities as part of their fundraising efforts.
As I am sure you have all concluded that this year's recipients of The "Heart and Hustle" Award is the Lucan Peewee Rep Boys Team. We will be in touch with each of you personally over the next month to award you with a small token of our appreciation.
We thank each and everyone of you for everything you have done. "
The 2019/2020 Peewee Boys Rep team:
MICHAEL CHALMERS
WESTON GOWER
LANE HARDY
LUCAS HUNDEY
KADEN LANGE
TRISTAN MERNER
GRAYSON PETRIE
DYLAN SALTER
OWEN SCHULLER
COHEN SMITH
BRENDAN SQUIRE
JOHN ZANE WALBY
Coaches and Bench Staff
TREVOR COLLVER
TYLER RICHARDSON
JANA BAYER-SMITH
JAMES CHALMERS
BRENDAN O'NEILL
We would also like to recognize all of the affiliated players, parents, siblings, and everyone else who assisted this teams tremendous efforts throughout the 2019/20 season. We are so proud of you all.