Author Archives: Michael Liotta

It is with great sadness that we are announcing the passing of Jim Gregory, NHL Senior Vice President and supporter of special hockey.

Jim Gregory began his career with the St. Michael’s Majors where he won the Memorial Cup as general manager in 1961 and as coach of the Toronto Marlboros in 1964 and once again manager in 1967.
He joined the Toronto Maple Leafs a scout in 1968 and the following year later was promoted to general manager. He spent 10 years as GM in Toronto.

In 1979 Gregory was hired by the NHL as its director of Central Scouting. He became executive director of hockey operations in 1986 and later became Senior Vice President, Hockey Operations and Supervision. He also served as chairman of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s selection committee from 1998-2014.

While Jim Gregory was very successful at the highest levels of the sport of hockey he was never far from his community. He was a very active supporter of several charities, including Jake’s House For Children with Autism. Through this partnership he supported our 2009 SHI Tournament called “The Jim Gregory Friendship Tournament”. During his appearances at the tournament he was always very engaged with the players and made sure that they were always the focus of events. For this he holds a very special place in the Grandravine family.

If you would like to pay your respects a visitation will be held Friday, November 1, 2019 from 2:00 – 4:30 pm & 6:00 – 8:00pm at Holy Cross Catholic Funeral Home 211 Langstaff Road East, Thornhill, ON, L3T 3Z6. Players are requested to wear their Grandravine jersey.

My name is Daniel Alexander Rigato. I was born in Clearwater, Florida and lived there for eleven years. When I was seven, I was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome. As a child, my tics were almost non-existent. I was very calm and would only occasionally have bouts of large frequent movements. As I got older, they started to become more prevalent in my daily life to the point where they were making my daily routine very difficult for me. But thanks to my family, friends and peers that I have met over the years I was able to get though my dark time and come back stronger than ever. My tics have gone down a bit recently but the still occasionally go up. I’m currently looking for various ways to decrease them. When my family moved back to Canada, I was diagnosed with ASD (formally Asperger’s Syndrome). My parents started looking for special needs only schools and extra curricular programs for me and I wasn’t used to it at first because I had only attended the regular public school systems in the past. I didn’t start becoming aware of what I had until later. The SHI League was one of the first extra-curricular programs I was enrolled in and at first I wasn’t aware that the people that I was playing with all had disabilities. I instantly connected with them and a lot are still friends with me today.
When I found out that for one of my school assignments, I was going to make a short film documentary about any topic I wanted. I knew exactly what the topic would be. A lot of people can’t really tell that I have ASD and Tourette’s syndrome just by taking a look at me. People were always shocked when I told them. I felt like this was a perfect to show people who I really am through a visual medium. I chose to use the SHI Grandravine Tornadoes as my subject to base my story around because it’s a program that, despite being international, very few people know about it. I thought, not only can I bring more awareness of the league, but also tell a good story about how just by playing really helped me with all sorts of life skills that got me to this point in college. Luckily my father and I knew a lot of inside people on the team and we knew that our friends would love to take part in this project. I hope you enjoy it.