TORONTO — North America’s largest — and likely funnest — charity hockey tournament continues to rake in cash for Alzheimer’s.
An impressive $1.65 million was raised by 33 teams during the 2016 Scotiabank Pro-Am for Alzheimer’s over the weekend, bringing the total sum raised over the tournament’s 11-year run to nearly $30 million.
Funds raised by the event, which invites Average Joes to compete alongside and against star NHL alumni, supports research, innovation, education and care for Alzheimer’s disease, at Baycrest Health Sciences in Toronto.
Stephen Cooper, a three-time participant, supports the event to honour his late grandmother and his father, who is showing signs of the disease.
“Over the past 10 years, I’ve seen the emotional, physical and financial strain that families are exposed to when Alzheimer’s disease hits close to home,” Cooper said. “I’d encourage every hockey fan to participate in the Pro-Am because not only can we meet the NHL alumni we grew up idolizing, but we are also supporting Baycrest, a world leader.”
Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute, one of the world’s elite neuroscience labs and the beneficiary of the funds, is developing a virtual brain to study the effects athletic impact and aging have on dementia.
Paul Coffey, Wendel Clark, Denis Savard, Adam Oates and Bryan Trottier were just a few of this year’s alumni to lend their time and still-got-it skills to the tournament.
“The alumni, we’re proud and happy to be a part of sticking it to Alzheimer’s,” Clark said. “Anytime us players get to go back and stick it to somebody, we’re in. We don’t get to do it too often anymore.”
The 12th annual Scotiabank Pro-Am for Alzheimer’s takes place May 5-7, 2017.
