Annual Sault Ste. Marie Hockey Tournament Shoots for $500,000 for Student Bursaries

Ask Frank DeMarco where he’ll be next year for the annual Bring a Doctor Home Hockey Tournament, and he’ll joke, “This is the last one! I’m never going to do this again!”

It is a big job to pull off the popular tournament. DeMarco has been the Executive Director of the event for the last five years and has been involved for at least a decade. He says Bring a Doctor Home has swelled to 27 teams over six divisions, with more than 450 participants.

“This year we even have the ‘City’ division,” he says. “The paramedics called me and said, ‘Frank, the doctors are playing. City police and firefighters are playing. What do we have to do to get in?’”

All proceeds from the charity tournament—which celebrates 20 years next year—go towards a NOSM University bursary for select students from the Soo and area. The hope is that with a financial boost, more graduates will come home to practise medicine.

“Some of the medical students who at one time were watching the tournament are now actually playing on the doctor team,” says DeMarco. “That’s the heart of it.”

The tournament has so far raised $461,951.93, and the goal this year is to reach $500,000. DeMarco says in years past, some very generous and “amazing” anonymous donors matched donations raised through the tournament, which he one day hopes to turn into an annual invitational tournament for all of Northern Ontario.

As for DeMarco, he says, “I do it because I love it.”

“The medical students we help come to you, and you get this humble ‘Thank you.’ If we can do this little bit to help them, then why not?”

The Bring a Doctor Home Hockey Tournament runs from January 15 – 20, 2024, at the John Rhodes Arena in Sault Ste. Marie.