On Saturday, smiles and laughter filled the air on Kingsgrove Boulevard in Etobicoke as Laura Stacey returned home for her sixth annual LS7 Charity Ball Hockey Tournament.
The tournament brought together members from all over the PWHL, who played on a record-breaking 20 teams to raise funds for youth access to sports.
“This event doesn't happen if it wasn't for the support from all of my teammates, and all of those athletes,” said Laura Stacey. “All these fans are coming here to see these athletes, and to get to play with them, to get their autograph, to get to spend the day with them. That's exactly what they get, so the time they give, the energy, the excitement they bring to this tournament, it's incredible, and it's the reason it happens.”
One player who joined the event this year is Claire Dalton, a native of Etobicoke and recent addition to the Toronto Sceptres.
“For all the girls in this neighborhood to see the PWHL players and all the pros it’s an important experience,” said Dalton. “To also just to come out and have fun and raise money for a really important cause makes this a great event.”
While the day was about fun and supporting the cause, the pros still brought their competitive nature to the concrete rinks.
“I came into this and I was like, I'm not going to be one of those players and the first game, I strapped on the goalie pads and was diving all over the place and I'm still sweating from it,” said New York Sirens forward Sarah Filler. “You can't turn off the competitiveness, but it's always fun.”
That competitive nature helped Fillier and her team make it to the finals, but ended up losing to Erica Howe’s team in the final game of the 2025 edition of the tournament.
The tournament started in 2018 when Stacey returned home after the 2018 Olympics. Stacey and her family came outside to play just a fun game of hockey on their little net, and all of a sudden all of the neighbors and kids started coming to ask to play in the game, ultimately creating this huge hockey game.
“It was incredible," said Stacey. “My sister's husband said to me, 'Why don't we do this? Why don't we run a charity hockey tournament?' So that's how it started.”
Six years later and over $100,000 raised through the tournament in Etobicoke, has made the LS7 team an official Canadian charity organization.
That success is taking the tournament on the road for the first time as they head to Montreal in August, Stacey's second home.
“They've done amazing things for me," she said. "If I can give back a little and bring this excitement, and this ability to get kids active and involved in sport, then I think that's a huge success."
"That's what I'm trying to do here, in Montreal and in Toronto, is give opportunities for kids to play a sport that they love.”
