A young Cape Breton boy, who is facing a life-threatening illness, had his dreams come true Thursday night when he got to meet his hockey heroes.
Six-year-old Riley Cormier has an inoperable cancerous tumour. He was diagnosed at sixteen months with stage three neuroblastoma, a rare childhood cancer, when doctors found a grape-sized tumour wrapped around his liver.
“It was devastating,” says Tara Cormier, Riley’s mother. “He went in for a simple doctor’s appointment and two days later we were at the IWK and he was scheduled for surgery.”
As it turns out, surgery wasn't possible. However, Tara says Riley is a normal, active boy.
The family makes the trip to Halifax every six months for appointments.
“How we've explained it to him is his tumour wakes up and goes to sleep. He always asks ‘Mommy, if my tumour wakes up again what’s going to happen? Am I going to have to go to heaven?’ So it's really traumatic around appointment time,” says Tara.
When The Cape Breton Screaming Eagles heard about Riley, they knew they wanted to help him forget about cancer and have fun for a night.
“Whenever there's things that happened that we can show our support, and in this case have Riley around and give him an outstanding experience of an evening, it's automatic for us to be part of this,” says Marc Andre Dumont, Screaming Eagles coach.
Riley received first-class treatment from his favorite hockey team, touring their dressing room and watching the game from a private box.
“I had to leave the room a few times, I was getting overwhelmed,” says Tara. “We were prepared to watch a hockey game. They introduced him to the crowd, they all clapped for him. He was in awe.”
Riley also received memorabilia signed by the team.
“A bag full of hockey stuff, a hat, and a hockey stick,” says Riley.
Riley says his favourite part of the night was when the players, who were not in the lineup, came to the box and sat with him, sharing the experience.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Kyle Moore
