Eight Chapeau clans reunited over the weekend to go head-to-head with their rivals in the community’s 18th annual family hockey tournament at the Upper Pontiac Sports Complex.
This year, Friday night’s opening games saw the Godins go up against the Vaillancourts, the Chartrands against the Adams, the Brannans against the Tierneys, and the Fitzpatricks against the Montgomerys.
From there, teams were syphoned into A and B divisions, each clambering to claim victory in their pools.
“There are the top four or five [families] who chirp all year and want to get playing against each other. It’s all in good fun though, but it gives you bragging rights for the whole year once you win it,” explained Ed Tierney, who organized the tournament with Phil Vaillancourt.
“My family alone, the Tierneys, we’ve probably won it the most, out of all of the teams, but it’s been pretty well shared throughout the 18 years.”
This year the Fitzpatricks claimed those bragging rights, winning first place in a final game against the Godins played late Saturday afternoon after the electricity was returned to the arena following a three hour power outage. The final game for the B division was not played because of the outage.
While the securing of bragging rights is the ultimate goal, organizers assured everyone is just there to have a good time. Teams are reminded to play nice and to not push for blow out scores. Importantly, if a player starts a fight on ice, they’re not invited back the following year.
The beloved community tradition was started 20 years ago by Luke Vaillancourt and Paul Chartrand. Since then, it has run every year with the exception of two years during the pandemic, and continues to be a significant fundraiser for the arena, usually bringing in around $10,000.
“It was something [my dad] was doing that I was happy to take over. It’s something I like to do for the community,” said Phil Vaillancourt.
Dave Vaillancourt, president of the arena’s board of directors, said he’s been playing in the tournament as long as he’s been allowed. The tournament’s minimum player age is 16 years old.
“We take a lot of pride in this. There’s a lot of hands on deck,” he said. “Even this morning, there was a bit of a party here last night so it was a bit of a mess, and just the first few people who got here to watch games, they just started sweeping and cleaning. It’s very community oriented, it’s nice.”
