Sean Berube said he thought it was a joke when he was first asked to help assemble a team of Ukrainian preteen refugees, displaced by war and spread out across Europe, to play in a renowned Quebec City hockey tournament.
Berube, a businessman from the Quebec City region, was having a beer in Bucharest last March with Evgheniy Pysarenko, whom he played hockey with in Ukraine as a teenager.
The businessman - with the help of Pysarenko - had just travelled to Ukraine to help his former Ukrainian hockey coach and the coach's family flee the Russian invasion. To show his gratitude, Berube said he owed Pysarenko a beer.
"Then he (Pysarenko) said, 'No, I've got a different thing to ask you. I have a different favour.'"
That favour morphed into a mission, culminating with travel visas to Canada for a group of 11- and 12-year-olds from Ukraine to play in the Quebec International Peewee Hockey Tournament, which has hosted greats such as Wayne Gretzky and Guy Lafleur.
The Ukrainian team is scheduled to take to the ice at the Videotron Centre on February 11 to play the Junior Bruins from Massachusetts.
"My thrill is to see them smile after all the mess and all the trouble they've been through for the last few months," Berube said this week before heading to Europe.