Canadian university hockey players lend a helping hand to Fort McMurray residents

Add Jaret Smith to the long list of Canadians that has reached out to the people of Fort McMurray in the aftermath of the wildfires that forced residents to evacuate. Lending a hand was an easy decision for a young man and now university hockey player who grew up in the Alberta community.

"All my friends have been evacuated that still live up there," says Smith. "I have four or five friends whose houses have burned down, and my aunt's got taken down to make a firebed."

Although now working in Red Deer, Alta., for the summer, Smith still has many connections in the town he called home until his high school days. After moving away to play bantam and midget hockey with the Red Deer Rebels, Smith was summoned back north to begin his junior career with the Fort McMurray Oil Barons of the AJHL.

"Every home game was a packed barn," said Smith, now a member of the Nipissing University Lakers in North Bay, Ont. "It's definitely a place that kids should want to go play junior hockey."

During the 2011-12 season, he roomed with teammate Kevin Lacroix, who remained in Fort McMurray and has been involved in stopping the wildfires.

"[Lacroix] is actually one of the firefighters fighting the fire in Fort Mac," says Smith, "There were times when he went 48 hours without sleep fighting the fire. So hats off to him for being an absolute hero."

Although Smith isn't fighting the fire himself, he's doing his part in helping the recovery effort.

 For every RT this gets, I'll donate 10 cents to Red Cross for the #ymmfire #ymmstrong pic.twitter.com/C9OTy0kDAM

Now standing at 1,752 retweets, the money total is at $175, but Smith hasn't cashed in the donation just yet.

"I want to get it to 2,000 so I can donate at least $200," says Smith, "I didn't actually have a clue how far it would get, but Chris Phillips from the Ottawa Senators retweeted me, and it kind of took off after that. I had a couple buddies tweet it at Justin Bieber. I kinda hoped for my wallet's sake that he didn't retweet it."

As Smith continues to watch his donation total grow, there's another Nipissing student-athlete doing her part to give back. Sam Strassburger is a third-year forward on the women's hockey team who had gone back to her hometown of Schreiber, Ont., after the conclusion of the school year.

"There were a couple of families from [Schreiber] who were affected when they moved out to Fort McMurray. So I gathered about three garbage bags of clothing and sent it off," says Strassburger.

Strassburger pointed to Smith’s actions as the inspiration for her to lend a hand. But forest fires are nothing new to the physical-education student.

"My dad used to work for M&R Fire Protection, so I've been around forest fires forever," recounts Strassburger. "When I was little, Terrace Bay almost had to get evacuated and Wawa and White River got evacuated due to a fire a long, long time ago. I've seen it affect so many people."

As the residents of Fort McMurray begin to put the pieces of their city back together, the Strassburger family continues to help out, and Smith has big plans for the rest of his summer.

"I'm trying to get a fundraiser and silent auction going in Red Deer at one of the bars there," says Smith, who will pass along the proceeds to the Red Cross. "I'm gonna try and gather some items, whether it be signed sticks from pros in the area, or signed jerseys, signed pictures, whatever I can get my hands on.”