Tyson Downs.Supplied
The organizer: Jesse Walker
The pitch: Organizing “66km for #66″
The cause: To fund research into the genetic causes of cardiac arrhythmia
Jesse Walker and Tyson Downs were about nine years old when they first bonded over hockey as a pairing on defence.
They lived near each other in Owen Sound, Ont., and became close friends. They went to school together, spent hours playing hockey on a rink in the Downs’s backyard and shared laughs with buddies at team gatherings the Downs hosted in their basement. Mr. Downs, the better player, eventually joined the Kitchener-Waterloo Siskins Junior B team, and had plans to study engineering.
One morning in July, 2023, Mr. Downs’s parents were puzzled because their son was sleeping in so late. When they tried to wake him, they couldn’t. He had died in his sleep from what doctors later discovered was genetic cardiac arrhythmia, a rare condition that occurs when signals that regulate heartbeats don’t work properly. He was 18.
“It hit a bunch of the community hard because he was really well known,” said Mr. Walker, 19. “He just was an amazing kid to be around.”
On Saturday, Mr. Walker and a group of friends are holding a 66-kilometre running relay around Owen Sound in honour of Mr. Downs, who wore the number 66. They hope to raise as much money as possible to fund the work of Dr. Michael Gollob, a University of Toronto professor who is a leading researcher at Toronto General Hospital’s inherited arrhythmia and cardiomyopathy program.
Mr. Walker has been organizing running events for years to support research into childhood cancer. He survived childhood brain cancer and has helped raise $100,000 so far.
Saturday’s run will be different. He hasn’t set a fundraising goal because he just wants people to give whatever they can in memory of Mr. Downs. He and others plan to wear T-shirts with one of Mr. Downs’s favourite quotes: “You don’t need to be the best, you just need to give your best.”
Mr. Walker will be running 21 kilometres for his friend. “I’ll be thinking about Tyson as I run,” he said. “And when I get feeling like I can’t finish it, he’ll be on my mind.”