Rockabye Ray Gariepy Passes Away

Rockabye Ray Gariepy passed away on March 16th, 2012.

Ray was born in Toronto on September 4th, 1928. He was adopted by the Gariepy family soon after. He left school early help his family in the bush and mines in the Timmins area.

Gariepy learned to skate at the age of 13. Soon after he took up the game of hockey. By 16 he joined the Barrie Flyers and his hockey career was on his way. He would play 8 professional seasos including 35 games with the Boston Bruins in 1953-54. The defenseman would play one more game with Toronto.

Gariepy earned the nickname Rockabye Ray for his devastating physical play. "Gariepy is one of the hardest body checkers I have ever seen," said Hockey Hall of Famer King Clancy. "I've never seen a harder one in all my years in hockey."

During the off season Ray worked as a bricklayer, then moved to concrete sales. In the late 1960s he established Simcoe Building Materials. He was married for 60 years and had 10 children.