A local hockey player has been recognized by the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) and Canadian Hockey League (CHL) as the \"humanitarian of the year.\"<\/p>\n
Dalyn Wakely is back home in Port Hope for the summer where he\u2019s also a member of nearby Curve Lake First Nation, but he makes North Bay his home-away-from-home during the Ontario Hockey League season.<\/span><\/p>\n His focus was on more than just hockey during his second season with the North Bay Battalion though, as he embedded himself in the community through his Wake\u2019s Sakes program which <\/span>raised over $2,000 and 3,450 products in donations for The Gathering Place.<\/span><\/p>\n Every Tuesday from November until the end of the regular season, Wakely with a rotating cast of teammates, also prepared and served meals at The Gathering Place, a community kitchen serving North Bay's homeless and low-income populations.<\/span><\/p>\n Wakely\u2019s efforts were recognized by the OHL as he was named the recipient of the Dan Snyder Memorial Trophy as the league\u2019s humanitarian of the year. In May, during the Memorial Cup tournament \u2014 the national major junior championship \u2014 he received the same humanitarian recognition from the Canada Hockey League, up against the other league winners Logan Stankovan from the Kamloops Blazers (Western Hockey League) and Cam Squires from the Cape Breton Eagles (Quebec Major Junior Hockey League).<\/span><\/p>\n Wakely said his desire to give back was fostered in the way he grew up.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMy mom and my dad, and my entire family really as a whole, have just always been people that have told me we\u2019re pretty fortunate to do what we do and for myself just to be able to play hockey \u2014 I\u2019m in a pretty lucky position to be able to do that \u2014 so anytime you\u2019ve got that opportunity to give back and whether that\u2019s through mentoring little kids playing hockey or kind of in the forum that I did helping the community and people that need help there, I think it\u2019s just always been the message to do so when the opportunity arises,\u201d Wakely remarked.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Now 19, Wakely thought it was appropriate as an older player in the league to take on more of a leadership role this past season on his team, but also praised teammates, coaches and the Battalion organization for helping make the Wake\u2019s Sake program a success.<\/span><\/p>\n It helped Wakely connect to the North Bay community.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnytime you\u2019re in a different community I think it\u2019s a learning experience and now just being able to meet so many new people, build those relationships, it\u2019s pretty cool and I think that stuff lasts a lifetime.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Back home, Wakely is also proud of his younger brother Sidney\u2019s success, including a great rookie season with the Port Hope Panthers junior C club. He was the Panthers\u2019 rookie of the year as they won their division in the Provincial Junior Hockey League before getting eliminated in the playoff quarterfinals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He also earned a silver medal with Ontario at the National Aboriginal Hockey Championships in Winnipeg.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re so far apart when I\u2019m in North Bay and I wish I could be there around to see more of his stuff because he\u2019s an unreal talent I think,\u201d Dalyn Wakely said. \u201cI think he\u2019s starting to see a lot of his hard work pay off. For him to be able to experience the Team Ontario out in Winnipeg was unreal and I\u2019m kind of jealous of the fact that he got to do that because that\u2019s a pretty special thing to be able to do and the way he performed out there was pretty sick. I\u2019m super proud of him, I\u2019m his biggest fan and I just look forward to being able to watch him moving down the line here.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n For Dalyn, what his First Nation heritage means to him all comes back to family.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhen I think about Curve Lake and I think about everything my life has grown up with, I just think about all my family there and how tight-knit we are,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m watching my cousins and brother grow up and kind of play out their careers as well. We can\u2019t do this without the people there and all of our families. I just always want to give my thanks to them when I can because they\u2019re always out supporting me, whether (the Battalion) are in Peterborough or they make the drive to North Bay, they\u2019ve always got my back and I\u2019ve always got theirs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Listen here to the full interview with Dalyn Wakely:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A local hockey player has been recognized by the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) and Canadian Hockey League (CHL) as the “humanitarian of the year.” Dalyn Wakely is back home in Port Hope for the summer where he\u2019s also a member of nearby Curve Lake First Nation, but he makes North Bay his home-away-from-home during the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":168039,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,16830,204],"tags":[22668,28391,28389,28390,26123],"radio":[25167],"origine":[267,25406,269],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168035"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168035"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168635,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168035\/revisions\/168635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168035"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=168035"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=168035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}