As fans chanted his name, 81-year-old Pat Doherty stepped out of a golf cart and climbed to the podium at Kitchener City Hall December 27, 2009. He held his Olympic torch high and then lit the cauldron, prompting wild cheers from the crowd of 13,000 attending the torch relay celebration.
Pat was nominated by a city of Kitchener committee to light the Olympic flame, and he couldn’t have been a better choice.
According to an editorial in the Waterloo Region Record, “no one has had as large a presence in Kitchener minor hockey.”
A pioneer of Canada’s first coaching development programs, Pat received a national award in 1997. “The esteem in which he is held in Ontario in the area of programming is virtually unprecedented,” reads the inscription.
The former Wilson Arena in Kitchener was named for Pat and now one of the ice pads in the Activa Sportsplex bears his name.
Many had heard that just 39 days earlier Pat had been felled by a heart attack and was literally brought back from the dead.
“I was lucky to be at the relay,” says the humble octogenarian. “I should have died, but I didn’t. I guess it wasn’t my turn.”
Pat’s heart stopped November 18, and he spent the next three weeks recovering at St. Mary’s General Hospital.
“We were so happy to have him at St. Mary’s because of its reputation,” says Gloria Doherty, Pat’s wife of 58 years. “The care was fantastic.”
Kathy, who was set to be an Olympic torch bearer in Welland after winning an essay contest, was optimistic her dad would rebound.
“I knew who we were dealing with,” she says. At St. Mary’s Pat pursued his goal fervently, fighting through pneumonia, heart failure and short-term memory loss.
“I was determined I was going to do it,” he recalls. Nurses at St. Mary’s posted a torch countdown in his room.
Stacey Brohman-Way was rushed to St. Mary's after experiencing a heart attack at her home. She had recently given birth to her second child and her cardiac arrest was attributed to a rare post-partum condition. Stacey received an emergency quintuple bypass and three years later is healthy and enjoying raising her sons.
Michael Linehan was working on his roof when he accidentally shot himself in the chest with a nail gun. After being transferred to St. Mary's, cardiac surgeons worked swiftly to repair the tear wounds to the walls of Michael's heart and arteries. Surgery was successful and Michael was released a few days later. Michael believes that he likely would not have survived a transfer to another city, had there not been services here in Waterloo Region.