North Bay high schools, late student’s family hold memorial hockey tournament

Chippewa Secondary School, West Ferris Secondary School and the Lyons family came together Wednesday for the Jack Lyons Memorial Hockey Tournament at Memorial Gardens.

The event honours Jack Lyons, a Chippewa Secondary School student who passed away in April of 2022.

Teams from Chippewa and West Ferris were part of the tournament, as was a North Bay North Stars team, which is the organization for whom Lyons played.

The event was run by Jenna Wilson, a Grade 12 student from Chippewa who had close ties with Lyons and is currently in the Grade 12 leadership course.

“I was very close with Jack and I knew how important One Kids Place was to him and the North Stars and Chippewa and Ferris, and bringing all these associations together for a tournament,” said Wilson.

“Especially in April, it’s Autism Awareness month and a couple days a go was the one-year anniversary of Jack’s passing. So it was important to us as a leadership program to get all those programs together and honour him in such a way.”

More than 1,200 students attended the game, with proceeds going to One Kids Place to operate the Jack Lyons Autism Summer Camps.

“We’re doing four weeks of summer camps, there’s going to be various age groups, 12 kids per week and it’s going to be great,” said Alex Frizzle, a service facilitator at One Kids Place.

Organizers told CTV News they hope to host another tournament next year.