Cold Lake rallies around 11-year-old diagnosed with cancer

Dominic T., left, is battling cancer and the football player is receiving huge support from the community. Fred Paris, right. 

Cold Lake football has rallied around one of its younger players who was recently diagnosed with cancer.

Dominic Torgersen is an 11-year-old from Cold Lake Middle School who loves football.

In late February his parents took him to the hospital where it was discovered that he had Ewing Sarcoma, a cancer that forms in the bones and soft tissue.

That’s when the community decided to step up and help out the family.

Fred Paris, Cold Lake Rams peewee football coach, started a GoFundMe page on behalf of the family to raise money for their upcoming travel costs.

Already, over $15,000 has been raised and the donations continue to come in.

“We were talking with some of the family members that we know and we saw a post that his older sister was actually doing a bake sale, trying to do some fundraising and the team decided to get behind them,” said Paris.

“I talked to Kelly Johnson [Royals head coach] over at the high school, we talked to all levels of the three teams and everyone was all in and that’s when we decided to pull the trigger.”

Events around Cold Lake will also be happening in the near future to continue the fundraising efforts.

“For those that are going to be having an interest in football and have an interest in cancer awareness on March 22 at 1:00pm we’re actually going to be putting together a flag football day [at the Energy Centre] where all the proceeds are gonna go to Dominic and our cause of standing behind him,” said Paris.

“It’s a great opportunity to interact and also to raise awareness about the types of cancer that are out there. Like his particularly his sarcoma, which is an aggressive bone as well as soft tissue cancer, so it’s important to get it out there.”

Dominic was invited to the Cold Lake Ice game on Tuesday night where they continued to raise more awareness.

“It’s pretty cool. All the attention sometimes gets me a little nervous,” he said.

You can support Dominic here.