Annual Joan Heimbecker Memorial Cup is far more than a hockey game for Kinesiology students, faculty and staff

Kaylee White’s helping keep a promise made years ago to honour fellow grad student Joan Heimbecker.

Kaylee’s playing in the 21^st annual Heimbecker Memorial Cup Friday night at the Morgan Firestone Arena in Ancaster. The hockey game has kinesiology undergraduates facing off against a team of grad students and profs. Last year, Kaylee played stay-at-home defense on the undergrad team. They lost. This year, she’s trading jerseys and hoping the prof and grad student team continue their win streak.

Kaylee knows the Heimbecker Cup is far more than just a hockey game and a social highlight of the year for the kinesiology department. The annual event raises money for the Joan Heimbecker Memorial Scholarship and Bursary and supports Interval House Hamilton, a non-profit emergency shelter for women experiencing family violence. The memorial cup also keeps Joan’s story from fading into history.

Even though she was born nine years after Joan’s murder, Kaylee knows the story. Grad students in Kinesiology have always been a tight-knit group. Kaylee can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to lose a peer and friend.

Joan was shot five times by an ex-boyfriend in her apartment in the Bates Residence at 9 p.m. on March 30, 1994. She was 25 years old. When her killer tried and failed to get early parole, neighbours and family friends from Joan’s hometown of Clifford, Ontario (pop. 875) boarded chartered buses at the break of dawn to fill every seat in the Hamilton courtroom.

Born and raised on her family’s 100-acre dairy farm in Wellington County, Joan graduated top of her class in physical education at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her grade point average was .44 shy of perfect. At Convocation, she was awarded the Governor General’s Gold Medal for outstanding scholastic achievement. She planned to dedicate her career to helping children.

Joan joined Mac’s kinesiology department in September 1993. Jim Lyons was among her many friends. On the morning after Joan’s murder, Jim got a call at 6 a.m., telling him to get to the department for an emergency meeting. That’s where he first heard the news. He was shocked and then devastated. Jim, who’s now chair of the department, says he can remember that horrific and heartbreaking morning like it happened yesterday.

The department immediately established a memorial scholarship to recognize a grad student, who like Joan in her year at Mac, showed the highest commitment to academic, social and community activities. Jim was awarded the first scholarship in 1995. He considers the award the most meaningful he’s ever received.

The Heimbecker Memorial Bursary for a grad student in financial need was added in 2002. Laurier also presents the Joan Heimbecker Award to the graduating Honours Kinesiology and Physical Education student with the highest overall four-year academic average.

In 2003, Mac’s Kinesiology Graduate Student Association dropped the puck on the first Heimbecker Memorial Cup. Association president Gianni Parise was worried that new students, faculty and staff joining the department didn’t know why a scholarship and bursary were named after Joan. He didn’t want Joan’s story to fade into history.

This wouldn’t be a one-and-done event. Gianni, who’s now the Acting Deputy Vice President of Research at Mac, enshrined the game into the association’s constitution. If the association holds only one event a year, it has to be the Heimbecker Cup. So far, the association’s never had to reminded, prodded or cajoled into hosting the event.

Professor Martin Gibala’s played in nearly every cup. He missed last year’s after tearing his meniscus during a pick-up hockey game just hours before game time.

Martin met Joan when they were both graduate students. They too became fast friends. He paid tribute to Joan in a 2011 guest editorial in the Hamilton Spectator while he was chair of the department. “Society is poorer because Joan’s tremendous potential went unfulfilled. Joan had a remarkable and lasting impact on the Department of Kinesiology despite the short time she spent at McMaster. Her spirit lives on and we will not forget her.”

Martin also wrote that at the Heimbecker Memorial Cup the “hockey is typically mediocre but the significance of the event is monumental.” The event remains monumental and the play’s improved over the years with the addition of younger faculty with solid hockey skills. Martin says his play remains mediocre.

On Friday night, Martin will be skating alongside Kaylee, trying his best to keep up and once again honouring and never forgetting his friend.

21ST ANNUAL HEIMBECKER MEMORIAL CUP

The puck drops on the Heimbecker Memorial Cup at 7 p.m. at the Morgan Firestone Arena in Ancaster.

Tickets are available online from Eventbrite and from the Kinesiology Graduate Student Association office this Wednesday and Friday from 9 a.m. to noon and 1:30 .m. to 6 p.m.

Donations can also be made to support the Heimbecker Memorial Bursary and Interval House Hamilton on the Memorial Cup’s GoFundMe page.