DEAR KAMLOOPS: Blazers Alumni Share Personal Letters Through 2026-2027 Season

Dear Kamloops: Blazers alumni share personal letters to the city and fans throughout the 2026-27 season

KAMLOOPS, B.C. — Fans often get to tell players how much they mean to them. But it’s not often the players get the chance to say it back.

This season, the Kamloops Blazers are changing that with Dear Kamloops, a monthly series of personal letters from well-known Blazers alumni reflecting on what it meant to wear the jersey, and play in front of fans who supported them along the way.

Each month throughout the 2026-27 season, a different former Blazer will write a letter to the people and community that helped shape their lives and careers.

The letters will be personal and reflective, offering former players an opportunity to look back on their time in Kamloops and the lasting impact of being a Blazer.

“We have the best fans in hockey,” said Blazers president Norm Daley. “They buy tickets, wear our colours, bring their families to the rink and give our players incredible support. Dear Kamloops is an opportunity for some of the people who have worn this jersey to tell them what that support has meant.”

The series will feature letters from alumni who have gone on to successful NHL and professional careers, as well as players whose time in Kamloops left a lasting mark on the community.

The first letter will come from Mark Recchi, a Kamloops native, Hockey Hall of Famer and former Blazers star who continues to spend part of his summers in the community.

Recchi played four seasons in the WHL, two in Kamloops and two with the New Westminster Bruins, finishing with 109 goals and 183 assists for 292 points. He spent more than 20 years in the NHL, scoring 577 goals and 956 assists for 1533 points in 1652 games. Recchi is a seven time All-Star and won five Stanley Cups three as a player, with Pittsburgh (1991), Carolina (2006) and Boston (2011), and twice as a player development coach with Pittsburgh (2016 and 2017).

He has been part of the Blazers ownership group since 2007.

For Recchi, the opportunity to write to Kamloops is also an opportunity to reflect on the place that helped launch his remarkable career.

“One of the things I look forward to most every summer is coming home,” Recchi writes in his letter. “Summer means being with family. Spending time in Kamloops and out at the Shuswap, catching up with the people I don’t get to see often enough.”

Recchi’s letter is the first in what the Blazers hope will become an ongoing conversation between the team’s past and present, and the community that has supported the organization for more than four decades.

Dear Kamloops will be released monthly throughout the 2026-27 season through the Kamloops Blazers’ digital channels, with additional opportunities for fans to connect with the stories and people behind the letters.

At its heart, the series is a simple thank you.

Because while fans have spent decades telling the Blazers what the team means to them, Dear Kamloops gives the Blazers’ alumni a chance to say what Kamloops has meant to them.