Local memorial fund supports youth hockey through competition and scholarships

When Carly LaGory’s son Logan watched “Inside Out” for the first time, he knew he had to play hockey like the movie’s main character, Riley.

“He was really inspired by that scene where Riley’s team carries her off the ice, even after she misses the shot and they lose the game,” LaGory said. “It all started from there.”

Logan is 13 now, and he’s still on the ice. So are his 11-year-old sister Jordyn, LaGory’s adopted 5-year-old son and her 6-year-old foster daughter.

Hockey is the most expensive youth sport according to a study by playgroundequipment.com, costing parents more than $2,500 per child per year. LaGory says that with her focus on service, particularly adoption and foster care, limiting her family to one income, more than a tenth of their income could go toward the sport if they weren’t able to get outside help.

When Logan turned 11, he transitioned to travel hockey, which LaGory said included a big price jump. 

“We went ahead and signed up as a leap of faith because our kids were already so involved,” LaGory said. “They already had friends. Hockey is like a family. It’s a pretty tight-knight community, and we were like, ‘We’re just gonna have to figure out how to make this work.’”

That leap of faith worked out for Logan and the LaGory family thanks to the Taylor Metcalf Fund.

Taylor Metcalf was a Talawanda High School student and member of multiple athletic teams, including hockey. He died in a car accident in 1995 at age 15, and the community started the Taylor Metcalf Fund to support hockey players in his honor.

“Taylor was one of those kids who just was naturally good at anything he tried when it came to sports,” said Emily Greenberg, a Talawanda graduate and board member for the fund who was friends with Taylor as a student. She remembers him being excited every time he got the Playmaker Patch for assisting his teammates in games because it was always about others to him.

When Logan started travel hockey, Greenberg was the team manager. LaGory said Greenberg encouraged her to apply for scholarships to help with travel and tournament costs.

This year, the fund has helped more than a dozen hockey players by awarding nearly $20,000 in scholarships, but the work doesn’t stop there. Board President Ryan Fink said the fund holds two major events each year, an adults tournament in May and a youth 3v3 tournament in December. The youth tournament started last year after lapsing during the pandemic, and more than 100 athletes from multiple states attended.

This year’s tournament, which is billed as the Red Brick Winter Classic, is open for ages 8 through 14. It will be held on Dec. 27 and 28 in Goggin Ice Center, and Fink said signups have exceeded last year’s totals. Members of the public are free to attend the tournament with no charge.

Logan, who is signed up for this year’s tournament, is giving back to the fund, too. LaGory says he raised money last year by selling fidget spinners, and this year he’s making printed banners for other players and giving money back to the Taylor Metcalf Fund.

Fink, also a Talawanda graduate, remembers playing in a yearly tournament held by the Metcalf fund while he was a student. Some of his teammates were able to play because of the fund, and he sees the sport as lifechanging.

“You’re put in so many situations in that sport that have pressure, that have fun, that have sadness, that have injury or fear — different things like that give so much more than just recreation to a kid,” Fink said. “To see what [the fund] did in the past for people that I knew, and now seeing kind of the other side of it … and understanding that we’re able to make a difference in that family’s life … is tremendous.”

Greenberg said much of the support for the fund comes from local businesses, many of which have teams named after them during tournaments — the Skipper’s team has won the adult tournament for the past two years. The fund is also involved with the Dan Sens Memorial, which holds an annual golf outing fundraiser each year.

Part of what makes the fund a success is the community that hockey fosters, Greenberg said. Adults remember their time in youth hockey, and it can easily become a family tradition, as it has for her family. Greenberg’s work with the fund is to make that experience available to more kids in the area, and that includes a long-term plan to create an outdoor street hockey rink in Oxford.

“The cost of hockey is very prohibitive, which is why we do what we do to make sure these kids stay on the ice,” Greenberg said. “That is why we do what we do, to make sure these kids stay on the ice. Being able to just introduce kids at a young age to fun things like street hockey or roller hockey is a lot of what we want to eventually be able to grow the Taylor Metcalf Fund [into].”

As the board members of the fund work to increase the accessibility of hockey for local kids, the sport has already given LaGory and her family a new group of people ready to help when needed, particularly as her family grows.

“When we get a new placement, our hockey family are the people who are bringing us meals to help us foster children out of vulnerable situations,” LaGory said. “Going down to the private foster care agencies to get fingerprinted to be allowed to babysit our kids that are in our care. They just became a huge part of our support system.”