On October 22nd, Sebastien Savage, a Canadian university hockey player for the Moncton Aigles Bleus, was paralyzed from the chest down in a game against the Acadia Axemen. A scholarship fund and a trust fund have been established by the Universite du Moncton, the Ottawa Senators and Sebastien's OHL team, the Ottawa 67s for Sebastien. The Lakehead Thunderwolves are joining teams across Canada and the CIS to help Sebastien and his family in this difficult and challenging time. St. Marys University collected over 20,000 dollars at one game last weekend while UNB collected over 5,000 to help Sebastien. At this weekends Lakehead games against Toronto, volunteers will be selling bracelets for five dollars in the Fort William Gardens lobby to support Sebastien.
Although Lakehead and Thunder Bay are geographically distant from the Maritimes, Thunder Bay has a long and caring history of reaching out and helping others. This type of accident could happen to any player in any hockey league across Canada; and in fact happened to Lakehead hockey player Irmo Marini (the only Lakehead player to have his number retired) in the early 1980s. Lakehead Athletics, Thunderwolves hockey, and the Lakehead players and coaches are challenging you, the greatest fans in CIS hockey to look into your heart and buy a bracelet at this weekends games! We have 500 bracelets to sell, and our goal is to send Sebastien and his family a cheque for 2500 dollars this coming Monday after we sell each one, and show Sebastien and his family that Thunder Bay is the city with the giant heart!