National Hockey League Hall of Fame defenseman Ray Bourque and his sons, Chris and Ryan, will play in the second annual Face Off for a Cause hockey game at 12:30 p.m. Sunday at the MHG arena in Saco.

Proceeds will benefit the Michael T. Goulet Epilepsy and Traumatic Brain Injury Foundation.

Goulet, who grew up in Saco, was a 21-year-old junior at St. Joseph’s College in Standish when he died of complications from a seizure in 2010.

Last year, the game raised more than $35,000 for the foundation, which used the money to create a scholarship fund at St. Joseph’s, award a grant to the University of New England’s Center for Excellence in the Neurosciences and award a grant to the Brain Injury Information and Epilepsy Foundation.

“A big part of our mission as a foundation is the educational aspect and also getting money to the families who are going through something like what (the Goulet) family went through,” said John Laliberte, a former Boston University forward from Saco.

Laliberte, who is entering his fourth season in the Deustch Eishockey Liga in Germany, is married to Goulet’s older sister, Candace.

When he was 13, Goulet sustained a massive head injury during a snowmobile accident.

“He learned how to do everything all over again, to walk, talk, eat, breath, swallow, everything, and it was a miracle he survived the accident,” said Danielle Goulet, another of Goulet’s sisters. “He developed a seizure disorder as a result of the brain injury.”

Laliberte has helped to organize the benefit hockey game. He asked the Bourques to play in Sunday’s game.

“A guy like Ray Bourque doesn’t have to come up and do this for us,” Laliberte said. “I played one year with Chris at college and Ray was unbelievably nice to me and Candace, who I was dating at the time. He was so good to us during that short period that I felt I could make the call to him and he’d be willing to do this for us.”

Bourque played 21 of his 23 NHL seasons with the Boston Bruins.

Last season, Chris Bourque, 26, led the American Hockey League in assists (66) and points (93).

A left wing, he recently signed a two-year contract with the Bruins after spending six of the past seven seasons in the AHL with the Hershey Bears.

Last season, Ryan Bourque, 22, was a rookie left wing with the Connecticut Whale, the AHL affiliate of the New York Rangers.

The rosters for the two teams in Sunday’s game include former Portland Pirates forwards Kent Hulst, Derek Whitmore and Dennis McCauley; former Maine Mariner and Bruins defenseman Bruce Shoebottom; former Bruins goalie Hannu Toivonen; former University of Maine players Travis Ramsey, Jeff Tory, Jeff Libby of Saco and Matt Mangene; former Providence College forward Matt Libby of Waterville; former Merrimack defenseman Darrel Scoville; current Boston College goalie Brian Billett of Brunswick; former Boston College defenseman Brian Dumoulin of Biddeford; and former Thornton Academy forward C.J. Maksut, 2012 recipient of Class A’s Travis Roy Award.

 

Staff Writer Paul Betit can be contacted at 791-6424 or at: pbetit@pressherald.com

Twitter: PaulBetitPPH

 

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