Oliver Smith: A Legacy to Remember

On November 9th, X-Men hockey and the community of Antigonish gathered at the Charles V. Keating Centre arena for the fifth annual Oliver Smith Memorial Hockey Game, in support of Ewing’s sarcoma. 

In February of 2017, Oliver Smith, a grade six student at St. Andrew Junior School and proud member of the Antigonish Bulldogs, was diagnosed with stage four Ewing’s sarcoma. Ewing’s is an aggressive form of cancer affecting bone and soft tissue that is most often developed in those between the ages of 10 and 20. Oliver was an endeared member of not only the Antigonish community but also StFX Athletics, playing an integral role in the X-Men hockey legacy of 2019. 

Oliver’s father, Bryan Smith, speaks to Oliver’s connection with StFX Athletics stating, “Oliver read the game speeches for the X-Men hockey team in 2019, the year that he passed away”. Smith elaborated, “Oliver, the first game of the playoffs, went to give them an OllieBot to kind of wish them well and they asked him to read the lineup. They won that game and then asked him to come back every other game and they kept winning—it got them to nationals and Oliver kept getting sicker and sicker”. By the time the X-Men reached the end of playoffs, Oliver had become a part of the team, but it didn’t end there, “my wife flew [Oliver] out to Lethbridge, and he showed up to nationals with them, surprising the team. He ended up doing speeches at those games, he was on SportsNet—they came into the dressing rooms and did it. They lost the semi-final game and then they played for bronze the next day’’. The X-men ended up winning the bronze medal in the final season which Oliver would be with us to witness. 

The OllieBot campaign was started in 2017 by Oliver and his father Bryan, who recounts the project originating while filling the time Oliver would have otherwise occupied with sport. After receiving positive interest and support from family friends, Smith says they thought ‘‘Hey, we could do this as a fundraiser and give back to Ewing’s’’. Smith remarks on the initial success of the

OllieBot campaign as “ridiculous”, “I think from [November 2017] until the day before Christmas we made 273 … it was a steady stream of people coming to the house, handing money”. Since November of 2017 when it all started, the family has produced and distributed over 6,000 OllieBots. 

Since 2019, in partnership with StFX Athletics and X-Men hockey, the Smith family has held an annual Oliver Smith Memorial hockey game, branded with the motto ‘Be the Hardest Worker’. ‘Be the Hardest Worker’ was something reinforced to Oliver and his siblings from a young age by parents Shauna and Bryan and was carried across all aspects of their lives. Bryan emphasized how well Oliver was able to translate what it meant to work hard in school and hockey, and then apply it to the hardships of his treatment.

The memorial game originally started as a business project for X-Women hockey player Santana Gravelle, with the first game in 2019, raising $8,000. The campaign was then handed over to the Smith family and has since raised over $100,000 for the Ewing’s Cancer Foundation of Canada Endowment Fund at the Toronto Sick Kids Hospital, as well as supporting families in the community whose children are battling cancer.