PITT MEADOWS — The storytellers will share as the B.C. basketball community comes together in just over one month’s time for a special event entitled ‘Celebrating the Wonderful Life of Richard ‘Rich’ Goulet’.
Goulet, the longtime boys basketball coach at Pitt Meadows Secondary and St. Thomas More Collegiate, who passed away this past March at the age of 74, will be eulogized at the event, set for 1 p.m. on Nov. 7 at the Meadow Gardens Golf Club in Pitt Meadows.
Due to restrictions brought on by the COVID pandemic, attendance is being limited to 200 people on a first-come, first-serve basis with a firm date to RSVP by Oct. 20.
Dave Goulet said that the months which have passed since his uncle’s passing have been filled with an outpouring of remembrances, something he hopes will continue to be shared next month, this time on a somewhat grander scale.
“Every time we get together, we hear another story, we hear about another side and that is what I am looking forward to the most,” Dave Goulet explained.
“He had this energy, he was so giving of his time, and he was always able to just laugh at himself,” he continued of his uncle, a five-time B.C. championship-winning coach. “Everyone saw the on-court guy, but not everyone else saw everything else he did.”
Dave Goulet said he organized this event in his uncle’s memory, because Rich Goulet’s earlier cemetery service was held with a limited gathering of 50 people, including funeral home employees.
“This will be a bit more of an event where we can eat, have some drinks and tell some stories,” he added.
The kinds of stories we might expect to hear?
“One of the great stories I heard was about how disappointed he was at losses (during the team’s frequent trips to Hawaii), and not all because of those losses… but how it would affect beach time the next day,” Dave Goulet said, referring to the fact that his uncle would plan beach time based around winning, not losing, within their tournament bracket.
“He said ‘We want to go to Hawaii and if we play well, then we can also capitalize (by going to the beach).’”
When asked if there was anything else he wanted to add about the celebration of life, Dave Goulet added that due to the strict COVID regulations regarding attendance, and what his uncle meant to so many in the basketball community, that the most important thing to stress to anyone wanting to attend was to honour the Oct. 20 RSVP.
If you are interested in attending you can email dgalt77@gmail.com or call Dave Goulet at 604-614-4160.
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I look forward to attending the Celebration of Rich Goulet.