What the Assist Fund means to me: Jake Poulin

Ben Gallacher’s hockey profession included a guidelines of accomplishments that
he dreamed of as a younger child rising up in Calgary.

Gallacher wore the Group Canada jersey twice, taking part in in two World Junior A
Challenges in 2010 and 2011. In 2010, the left-handed defenceman, who
performed his minor hockey with the Glenlake Minor Hockey Affiliation in
southwest Calgary, was chosen within the fourth spherical, 93rd total, by the
Florida Panthers within the NHL Entry Draft.

“Being drafted is a day I’ll by no means ever neglect. It was surreal,” says
Gallacher. “It was unbelievable within the truest sense of the phrase, one thing
that you simply’ve been attempting to domesticate because you had been 5 years previous and, to
hear your title known as and placed on the jersey and meet everybody and understand
that your dream is beginning to turn out to be extra of a aim and aspiration and
inside attain, that was nice.

“The moments main as much as that … I acquired to put on the Group Canada jersey
twice and people moments had been a few of my proudest as a hockey participant.
Placing on the jersey and the prospect to signify one thing that’s a lot
better than your self, represents the entire individuals who have put that
jersey on earlier than you and all of those that put it on after you, you’re
all the time going to be related to.”

Gallacher appears again and realizes he was lucky, not solely to play the
recreation at such a excessive stage however to play it in any respect. As a Glenlake Hawk,
Gallacher was coached by Gerry Pinder, who performed for Canada’s Nationwide
Males’s Group on the 1968 Olympics and hung out with the Chicago Blackhawks
and California Golden Seals within the NHL, and Brian Skrudland, who’s finest
identified for his time with the Montreal Canadiens however who additionally performed with the
Panthers, Flames, Rangers and Stars as a part of his 881 video games on this planet’s
finest league.

Gallacher now offers again to the sport as he needs extra children to get the
alternatives he did. He’s a part of the Cannonball Sport & Schooling
Fund, a household group that additionally consists of his brother Liam and mom
Susan Anderson.

Earlier this yr, Cannonball introduced it could donate $1 million to the
Hockey Canada Basis Help Fund over 5 years to assist the Help
Fund present hockey registration charge help for younger Canadians who could
not have been capable of return to the ice on account of monetary constraints
introduced on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We really feel like each younger boy and lady ought to have the chance to place
on skates and see in the event that they prefer it, figuring out that almost all will,” Gallacher says.
“We really feel like that chance is absolutely essential for that to be
equitable. That’s the place we see the gorgeous facet of the Hockey Canada
Basis attempting to assist hockey turn out to be extra of an equitable recreation.”

He provides that sport has all the time been essential to his household, along with his mother
taking part in aggressive tennis and now pickleball, his brother turning heads as
a volleyball participant and golfer and, in fact, Ben himself on the ice.

“We simply noticed the worth of sport, comradery, having teammates, engaged on a
collective aim. Making an attempt to create additional youth participation in Canada was
actually essential for us,” says Gallacher.

That’s the game facet of Cannonball – however the group does a lot
extra. Anderson, a lawyer by commerce, grew up in a family the place each of her
mother and father had been lecturers, which instilled in her the significance of schooling.
She has turn out to be a well known entrepreneur and philanthropist in Calgary and,
in 2019, made a transformational donation to the Calgary Public Library
Basis to help early childhood literacy.

It was one of many largest presents within the CPL Basis’s historical past and, in
recognition of the help, the CPL named the youngsters’s space on the
Central Library the Jocelyn Louise Anderson Kids’s Library in honour of
Anderson’s mom.

“Our mission is to assist financially deprived children play sport and get
an schooling,” she says. “Schooling is essential to me, as each my mother and father
had been lecturers and I imagine schooling is crucial think about serving to somebody carry themselves out of poverty, notably women. And
that is supported by knowledge as effectively.”

“The primary years of a kid’s life as so essential,” says Anderson. “I
imagine within the worth of childhood schooling and wished to take part in
making this obtainable to Calgary’s youngsters to provide them a robust begin
towards a profitable future.”

Whereas a lot of Cannonball’s schooling work is targeted on Calgary, the
basis has touched the lives of Canadians from coast to coast to coast
and the partnership with the Help Fund will assist youth all through the
nation hit the ice and revel in Canada’s recreation.

To donate to the Hockey Canada Basis Help Fund, CLICK HERE.