Red Deer's Ryan Vandervlis (left) and Graysen Cameron of Olds recently took part in the Dawg Nation charity hockey tournament in Denver, Colorado. (Supplied)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

charity puck

Local injured hockey players give back through charity event in Denver

Jul 13, 2019 | 1:22 PM

A pair of local hockey players who suffered traumatic injuries in 2018 are giving back to others through the game they love.

Ryan Vandervlis, injured in a campfire incident in summer 2018, and Graysen Cameron, who was on the Humboldt Broncos bus when it crashed in April of last year, recently took a trip to Denver.

There, the duo played in a charity event for the Dawg Nation Hockey Foundation, which helps adult hockey players and their families in times of crises due to catastrophic injury or illness.

“This year there were 44 teams. Every team passes around an envelope (in the dressing room) and Dawg Nation matches it and chooses one lead recipient,” Vandervlis explains.

“Last year, the event raised $48,000 for Humboldt Broncos bus crash survivor Ryan Straschnitzki. This year, they gave over $75,000 to a U.S. war veteran who lost one of his legs and shattered the other one while serving as a medic in Iraq.”

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Vandervlis, who returned to the ice last winter with the Red Deer Vipers after spending time with the Lethbridge Hurricanes, describes the tournament as ‘powerful.’

“’Cams’ went last year as a coach and got to work with (Vegas Golden Knights player) Paul Stastny. This year he called Martin Richardson, the guy who started Dawg Nation, and said he wanted to play and he brought my name up,” a grateful Vandervlis acknowledges.

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“When you go down there and see – I burned 60 percent of my body, and I can’t imagine burning anymore – and you see a guy who burned 90 percent; I was in a coma for 10 days, he was in a coma for a year, so it’s impossible to feel sorry for yourself.”

Vandervlis says the best moment of the tournament came when his pal ‘Cams’ scored his first goal in a game, competitive or non-competitive, since the crash that killed 16 people.

“It was kind of this crazy moment. I got a good look, kind of blacked out there and put it in the net. Ryan was the first one to come by and see me, he was on the ice, and the place just erupted,” Cameron recalls.

“I tried to take it all in, got to the bench and my dad came over to me too. He was crying a little bit, and that doesn’t happen too often.”

Both Cameron and Vandervlis agree they’d like to continue in their charitable endeavours wherever their paths take them, including returning to the Dawg Nation tournament each year.