A Day of Hockey for Ryan Rudden
Story and Photos
By Katie McFadden
Saturday, October 5, was a beautiful day for some hockey. Seven teams took to the Beach 108th hockey rink to play late Ryan Rudden’s favorite sport in his memory at the 17th Annual Ryan Rudden Memorial Hockey Tournament.
The beautiful day featured all-day roller hockey with 11 regular games and three final games. Ultimately, the royal blue team, the Coyotes, took home the trophy this year. DJ Mikey Blingz played some tunes while attendees enjoyed food, drinks, raffles and hockey. This charitable hockey tournament is played each year in memory of Ryan Rudden, a 17-year-old Rockaway resident who was killed in a car accident in 2002. His own Rockaway Rockies jersey, with the number 11, was posted outside of the rink as players in various colors wore his name on their jerseys.
The Ryan Rudden Memorial Hockey Tournament is now officially run through the Ryan Rudden Foundation, a charity to support those in need in the community. Organizer and Ryan’s sister, Rickielynne Rudden said, “On behalf of the Rudden, Steiner and Francavilla families, we would like to thank everyone for their continued generosity and support. This year as we launched the Ryan Rudden Foundation, it was even more important that we created an event that would help us get off the ground as well as provide us the funds to continue the work that we began this tournament for years ago; helping others in our community. Through your generous donations, support and friendship we are able to not only launch our foundation but will be able to start the work we set out to do. We can’t wait to see how much good we can do as we grow the foundation that we began in Ryan’s name. We hope our work brings happiness and comfort to those that need it most and are looking forward to the smiles we generate in honor of our favorite and eternally missed smile, Ryan Joseph Rudden.”
Some of this year’s proceeds from a big 50/50 that raised more than $16K, went to the Foundation and to the family of Jimmy Costin, a longtime supporter and Rockies player who died after a battle with cancer last month, while the other half went to one lucky winner.
