INNISFAIL – Jayce Pols was inside the Innisfail Twin Arena on the morning of April 20 helping many other volunteers set up the 27th Annual Spring Fever Road Hockey Tournament.
The tourney, along with its Helping Hand Fund, was established through local sports legend Dean Turnquist with huge help from loyal and committed friends to ensure underprivileged kids are not excluded from sports because of financial challenges.
The 24-year-old Pols began playing in the tournament when he was about eight-years-old. In the last few years he has been a contributor to the event’s eight-member organizing committee.
Today he works as a plumber in the maintenance department of the Chinook’s Edge School Division.
“It’s not only about just getting together with everyone in the community but figuring out who you are as a person, and seeing who the people are in your community, and seeing what you want to be as you get older,” said Pols. “It’s a great event. Like all my buddies I look forward to it every year.”
Volunteer Darlene Thompson was also busy on April 20 ensuring tournament supplies would be ready for the scores and scores of participants, young and old, who were expected to come to the annual event.
Thompson has been connected to the tournament since its inception. Her husband Brad, along with niece Kimberly and many others, played a big part in helping Turnquist after his injury to get the event started.
“I have been part of it for a long time,” said Thompson, who was crowned by the Town of Innisfail just the night before as Innisfail’s Citizen of the Year for her decades of selfless volunteering for the community. “It's just been an honour of watching kids grow up."
“The kids were all of sudden, ‘how come we don't get a tournament?’, because it was just for adults back then,” she added. “It’s been awesome watching my kids play, and now my kids are adults and they're still playing.”
Turnquist of course was also working hard alongside the legion of committed volunteers.
He told the Albertan he remains “humbled” by the volunteer support, as well from friends who worked so hard on his behalf to start the event more than 27 years ago.
Turnquist said it has been heartwarming over the years to see tournament children from years earlier who go on to play on the adult side, like Pols, whose mother was one of the committee’s original members.
“it just comes full circle. It’s heartwarming for me because I see the value in doing it,” said Turnquist.
This year the tourney, which is supplemented by an evening cabaret at the Innisfail Royal Canadian Legion Brach #104, featured about 175 players in 16 adult and 10 kids’ teams, as well as scores of family members and friends of all participants.
Many are Innisfailians, but many also come from municipalities across Central Alberta and even from down south.
To financially support the event and its cause each adult team paid $300 while the cost for each child was $30.
Turnquist expected the 27th annual event, along with the cabaret, would raise up $6,000; monies that would add to the more than $300,000 raised for the Helping Hand Fund since its inception.
“All the money raised goes back into the community to help kids participate mostly in sports, but we also help other activities if kids need it,” said Turnquist. “I can tell you that in the first four months of this calendar year we have already donated to 15 different kids.
“This fund is to make sure kids get an opportunity to participate and it grows through who they are as a person. For me, that pays for itself tenfold coming back into the community because they become greater contributors to our community in the long run.”
