Spits raise money for local sports

by Ashley Davidson

Tecumseh Minor Hockey received a cheque today from the Windsor Spitfires for the money raised at the Johnny Shotz Alumni Game.

The game took place on Saturday, July 28 and raised nearly $9000. Former Spitfires such as Taylor Hall, Adam Henrique and Kyle and Eric Wellwood participated.

Steve Meloche, owner of Johnny Shotz, said the idea started small and became a big success for Tecumseh Minor Hockey.

“We just came up with an idea to do a charity hockey game, and it started out as a bunch of guys getting together to try and raise some money for Tecumseh Minor Hockey,” said Meloche. “Once the Spitfires came on board we started making some phone calls and we got a couple players saying yes and it just snowballed to Taylor Hall and Adam Henrique and everybody else.”

According to Spitfires head coach Bob Boughner they didn’t need to do a whole lot of work to convince the former players to come out. He said they “rallied together” to make it happen.

“That just shows they had a great time here,” said Boughner. “They love the city and the area and to come back to do that for us was a real nice compliment.”

Chris Moore, the past president of Tecumseh Minor Hockey, said that was really the goal of this whole thing in the first place. They want to give kids the chance to be part of a team and to have fun.

“Our goal working with the Spitfires and Johnny Shotz and different organizations to raise money, is to help keep the cost down,“ said Moore. “But also to offer better development programs for the kids so they can just have fun and enjoy and just do whatever level of development they want.”

Between the Alumni game and the other fundraising, Tecumseh Minor Hockey raised $9,200 according to the calculations done by Meloche, and they aren’t stopping there.

They are also selling raffle tickets to give away tickets to the Winter Classic that is scheduled to take place this winter at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.