Brother of Broncos crash survivor raises $50K in hockey tournament

A four-on-four hockey tournament fundraiser in Swift Current this weekend raised an estimated $50,000 for the Humboldt Strong Community Foundation.

Ryan Gobeil, the older brother of Broncos crash survivor Morgan Gobeil, organized the two-day event.

"The hockey tournament was what brought everyone together. The hockey part of it is not where we made all our funds, it was more the social area with the city of Swift Current [coming]together," RyanGobeilsaid in an interview.

"Yeah, we did all right. A lot of people came together to do some good things. It's one of those things, I didn't want to set my expectations high or low, 'cause I really didn't know how it was going to go."

• Humboldt Broncos GoFundMe closes, raises more than $15M

The Foundation was created to help manage funds that have continued to pour in, even after the shut down of aGoFundMecampaign that collected more than$15 million.

Gobeilsays eight teams participated. The winningteam is called the Maple Leafs.

"They were made up of a group of Kelowna Rockets alumni and friends. They had some guys that played professional, they had some guys that were ex-WHLersand some current WHLers. They're a pretty good squad," Gobeil said.

"I played on the last place team. We had a few guys on our team who were, let's say, amateur level hockey players. It waspretty cool to share the ice with some of those guys who were pretty high-end guys.Luckily for us, they took it pretty easy on us, so it was a fungame."

Gobeil says the tournament offered a "ray of light" in the wake of the crash.

"It's kind of a wake-up call for me and others, that I can do more," he said.

"These aren't going to be the first and last kids to go through these things. There's going to be others, and we want to be there for them, too."