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FORE DAN Ottawa Senator Dany Heatley tees off at the fifth annual Dan Snyder Memorial Golf Tournament in Elmira July 14.

As the fifth and final Dan Snyder Memorial Golf Tournament wrapped up Monday night at Lions Hall in Elmira, there was a mix of emotions in the air.
Although the $500,000 fundraising goal has been exceeded and the Woolwich Memorial Centre is taking shape, participants were unsure they wanted the yearly event to end.
Hockey Night in Canada’s Ron MacLean could not make it to Elmira this time around, but expressed his desire to maintain a friendship with the Snyder family and “party” with them in years to come.
“Love you Snyders,” he said on a videotape during the Stanley Cup finals at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.
The evening’s emcee, NHL-insider Bob McKenzie, echoed similar sentiments, making sure to keep the atmosphere light by updating the crowd with the latest hockey trades.
As dinner guests leafed through Small Town Hockey Boy, Memories of Dan Snyder, unveiled for the first time that night, tears and laughs were shared. People reminisced about Dan Snyder and about the five-year event he would have been proud of.
The tournament began in 2004 following his death in a car accident at the age of 25. Fellow NHL-ers, including some of Snyder’s Atlanta Thrashers teammates, have been attending the event since the beginning, leading to great fundraising success.
This final showing was no exception, with $115,000 raised through the golf ing and a silent a uction held at the dinner.
Snyder’s former doctor, Tommy Simpson, took home the night’s most-coveted item: a signed Thrashers jersey from the Snyder family’s private collection.
“It means everything in the world,” Simpson said of his acquisition.
He plans to hang the memento in his office at the Woolwich Community Health Centre in St. Jacobs to represent Snyder “coming home.”
Simpson described his former patient as “an intelligent, friendly grinder,” and others used similar words to portray Snyder Monday night.
His family, however, including father Graham and mother LuAnn, needed few words to express what they were feeling. Instead, they shed tears to remember Dan and to thank those who have contributed to the tournament over the past five years.
As the evening came to a close, the Snyders presented family, friends and sponsors with framed photos in memory of Dan. The event’s winning golf team (with a score of 59) also took the stage to accept jackets from Graham for the last time.
“It was a little bit emotional I suppose,” Graham said of that moment. “We hate to see it end, but on the other hand, there will be some new beginnings.”

An innocent summer swim at a Hawkesville-area pond turned tragic Tuesday when a 10-year-old boy from Elmira died after sinking to the bottom of the water.
Joshua Weber, who had been swimming with friends in the popular private pond on a Temperance Road property, was airlifted to Grand River Hospital in Kitchener, but could not be revived.
When firefighters from the St. Clements station of the Wellesley Fire Department arrived on scene shortly after 2:30 p.m., they couldn’t immediately find the boy, diving into the murky water of the pond, said township fire chief Dave Geil.
“We had about three firefighters that were in the area that responded in their own vehicles and the rescue came right behind them … the fellows that got there first were diving in the water for him,” said Geil.
Some three minutes later, rescuers found Weber at the bottom, a depth of roughly four metres. Police believe he may have hit his head near a dock after losing his grip on a rope swing.
Emergency workers were called in when the boy failed to come back up for air, at which time his young friends tried to find him but were unsuccessful. One of the boys then ran across the gravel road to alert a neighbour who subsequently called 9-1-1.
Firefighters believe Weber may have remained at the bottom of the pond for as long as 20 minutes, said Geil. Emergency personnel tried to revive him at the scene before calling an air ambulance. Attempts to resuscitate the youth were made at the Kitchener hospital but were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead shortly after.
Police said that the property owner was not home at the time and no adults were watching over the youngsters.
“In order to provide safety for the young swimmers, adult supervision is suggested,” said Sgt. Merv Knechtel of Division 3A in Elmira, who also lauded the firefighters’ quick response.
The private, manmade pond, which sits behind the Temperance Road property near the Conestogo River, is a popular spot for area youth and is used despite signs warning visitors to swim at their own risk.
“If there were no parents there, then I think it should be supervised,” said Geil.
Waterloo regional police are urging all parents and caregivers to review water safety tips with their children and remind everyone to take appropriate precautions near ponds, rivers and other waterways.

BIG PLANS Elmira’s Krystin Kudoba holds up the T-shirt she and friend Taylor Murdoch designed as part of a business project for school. The girls’ screen-printing business plan received an honourable mention at the Waterloo Region Ontario Secondary School Business Plan Competition awards July 16 in Kitchener.

Two Elmira high school students proved to have the “Magic Touch,” as they received an honourable mention at the seventh annual Ontario Secondary School Business Plan Competition in Waterloo Region July 16 at Kitchener City Hall.
Krystin Kudoba and Taylor Murdoch’s idea, The Magic Touch, stood out among a record 75 plans submitted by 105 students from 15 high schools.
The duo spent several weeks fleshing out the concept, which involved setting up a screen-printing booth at the St. Jacobs Farmers’ Market where customers could watch their T-shirt designs come to life.
Kudoba, 16, had enjoyed the silk-screening process in technology class and decided to explore its moneymaking possibilities for the girls’ year-end business project at Elmira District Secondary School.
Their teacher, Terry Lapalme, was so impressed with the plan that she encouraged them to enter the competition.
“We thought we might as well because the worst that could happen is that we’d win,” Kudoba said.
Learning this week that they had placed fourth among a large group of entrepreneurs was exciting and surprising, Kudoba said.
“I didn’t really expect it.”
Judged by small business advisors from the Waterloo Region Small Business Centre, the plans were graded on creativity, style, innovation and viability, as well as the students’ market research and financial statements.
Kudoba said they treated this project like any other they have completed: with attention to detail.
The longtime friends always go over and above what is required to make their finished products unique. They even made a silkscreened T-shirt featuring their company logo to accompany the business plan.
“We just like thinking of ideas and stuff, because it was totally up to us, like what we wanted to do. It was really fun.”
To comply with the research aspect of the project, Kudoba and Murdoch, 17, spent hours looking up comparable businesses online and generating ideas from technology classes. They also made sure to develop a budget under their $30,000 limit.
All this work should come in handy in the future for Kudoba, who plans to turn her interest in design into a career.
For now though, the girls are spending more time working for businesses than planning them, with Kudoba helping out in the kitchen at Jerry’s Canteen in Kitchener and Murdoch away all summer acting as a sailing instructor.