A Celebration of Life is planned this week for Paul Bennett, the hockey coach and operating-room nurse shot dead outside his Cloverdale-area home last month.
The memorial event will take place Friday afternoon (July 20) at Newlands Golf & Country Club in Langley, from 1 to 3 p.m.
Bennett’s family has extended an invitation to members of Cloverdale Minor Hockey Association, for which Bennett coached an Atom team last season.
“The day will be about sharing fond memories and stories of Paul and his impact on all of the lives that he touched,” association president Marty Jones wrote in a Facebook post.
“We would encourage Colts players to wear either their Colts jackets or Colts practice jerseys to identify themselves as members of the Colts. Members of Paul’s former teams are encouraged to wear those jerseys.”
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Bennett, 47, was killed on the afternoon of June 23 in the 18200-block of 67A Avenue, in what the RCMP’s Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) called “not a random incident.”
Bennett worked as an operating-room nurse department manager at Peace Arch Hospital in White Rock. Eleven days before he died, Bennett was featured in a video posted by Peace Arch Hospital Foundation, explaining “the ABCs of laparoscopic surgery.”
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An online fundraiser in Bennett’s name has raised more than $42,000 in 22 days. The “Paul Bennett (In Memory)” page at gofundme.com, launched by friend and co-worker Tammy Larson, has collected donations from close to 300 people since it was created on June 24 with a goal of raising $50,000 to “help his family when they are going to need it most.”
