‘One of the happiest guys I’ve met’: Sydney community mourns loss of local sports fan

People in the Sydney, N.S., area are mourning the loss of one of the city’s biggest sports fans and inspirations.

Trevor Rutherford lived with Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy, but that didn’t stop him from spreading joy to everyone he met.

No matter where you saw him, Rutherford always seemed to have his trademark smile on his face.

For decades, Rutherford and his family were fixtures in the seats at Sydney’s Centre 200, where they witnessed their fair share of sports history.

But the closest friendship he made at the rink may have been with former Cape Breton Eagles captain Robert Slaney.

“Trev and I actually became friends at high school at Sydney Academy before we ever met at the rink,” Slaney tells CTV Atlantic.

Just a few weeks ago, Slaney visited Sydney from Newfoundland for his friend Chris Culligan’s jersey retirement.

Slaney ran into Rutherford at the game. Neither knew it would be the last time.

“I didn’t know who I was going to see that weekend, who I was going to run into,” said Slaney. “But I can say that I was very happy to run into Trev.”

Adding, “Looking back now, I’m very glad that I did. And of course he met me with that big smile, just as I remembered, and it was like we didn’t miss a beat for the last 15 years.”

Rutherford graduated from Sydney Academy in 2006 and went on to earn a degree at Cape Breton University.

He passed away last Saturday at the age of 34.

As the tributes poured in on social media, his many friends remembered him as a guy who defied the odds and packed everything he could into those years.

“In the more recent years, when he had his [tracheostomy tube] and he wasn’t really able to speak as much, you could just see the eyes constantly lit up,” said Rutherford’s friend Kurtis Deveaux. “There was a sparkle in his eye. He was just so happy, so fun-loving.”

Slaney remembers Rutherford as “a guy who had every reason not to have that smile on his face every day, but he brightened everyone’s days.”

“And just the support that he had from his family – he went nowhere without having an escort around him of people who were there supporting him,” said Slaney. “I’m just going to remember Trev as probably one of the happiest guys I’ve met.”