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Kenneth Patrick Fraser

Avid sports fan, quick wit, fighter. Born on May 9, 1983, in Kingsville, Ont.; died on May 24, 2014, in Kingsville, of melanoma, aged 31.

When Ken Fraser had to move back home across the country after receiving a second diagnosis of melanoma, his buddies weren't going to let him go it alone. They planned an epic road trip – five guys driving his van from Vancouver to Southern Ontario, with tickets to see two hockey games along the way. One friend flew back from China to join the trip.

Few people would inspire that kind of loyalty. But there are few people like Ken.

Known as Cap, Kenny, Skimmer, Brother and Bud, he made and kept friends everywhere he went, from his childhood to his junior hockey years, to the time he spent working and partying in the Rocky Mountains. If there was a get-together, he was at the centre of it, making sure everyone had a beer in hand and was having a good time. He could be a person of few words, but he was charismatic and cheerful and his humour was razor-sharp.

One night in Vancouver during the 2010 Winter Olympics, he and his friends were outside a bar when things got heated between one of his pals and a burly passerby. "Listen," Ken said to the stranger, stepping between the two, "I didn't do my hair for nothing tonight, buddy." Situation defused.

Ken was born and raised in Kingsville, Ont., on the shores of Lake Erie, less than an hour from the Windsor border with Detroit. The younger of Dan and Pat Fraser's two sons, Ken was the quiet observer, happy to be in the background at family gatherings. He never desired anything, making him the rare child who was impossible to shop for at Christmas.

While his summers were for baseball, winters were for hockey. Ken learned to skate at 5 and never left the ice. He played on his high-school hockey and curling teams, played travel hockey for Kingsville Minor Hockey, and became captain of the Kingsville Comets Junior C team. He was an avid fan of the Detroit Red Wings, Tigers, Lions and Pistons.

In his early 20s, Ken and one of his childhood friends decided to move west. Ken worked in Banff, Alta., then Vancouver and finally the small town of Revelstoke, B.C., where he got a job at a sawmill. Coming from the flat farmland of Ontario's Essex County, it was no surprise he fell in love with the mountain landscape.

When his brother visited for the first time, Ken planned to take him to Whistler. Phil asked how long the drive from Vancouver would take. A couple of hours, Ken said. So, Phil asked, it was like the drive from Windsor to London, Ont.? Yeah, just like that, Ken said. Phil was floored by the scenery.

In 2011, Ken was diagnosed with melanoma and had surgery and radiation. Two years later, feeling under the weather, he discovered the melanoma had returned, stage four this time.

Ken was determined to beat the disease. He was a fighter, never dwelling on the pain he endured. He had hope that a miracle would come his way and life would go on. In the meantime, he squeezed in every experience he could, going out with friends between medical appointments. He never wavered in his motto: Life – live it and love it, now, not later.

Although Ken is gone, we will hold on to the memories forever.

Pat Fraser is Ken's mother.

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