Honoring Mason Fox
When one of Tassone’s ball hockey players needed help, Tassone utilized the sport to rally the community.
Mason Fox was a member of the youth ball hockey team that won a gold medal with Tassone at a tournament in Lakewood Ranch, Florida. The Oakwood Elementary student and devoted hockey player was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after the win, and Tassone wanted to help.
“He was a really good hockey player, and his team at the Lakewood Ranch tournament, we won the gold medal,” Tassone said. “Then a month later they found out that he had cancer. So, as the year went on, the summertime came, I’m like, you know, what can we do?”
What better way to do so than the sport Fox loved? Tassone approached the principal, asking if the school could host a ball hockey tournament as a fundraiser for the Fox family in 2024. They raised $7,000 in the 4-on-4 event, offering games across four divisions in third, fourth and fifth grade as well as girls teams.
Fox played in the first year of the Mason Fox Ball Hockey Tournament in the midst of his fight against cancer. The Lightning hockey development team traveled to the school with four portable rinks and donated shirts for the event.
“He was always smiling, always happy, and he loved hockey. That put us in the same mindframe,” Tassone said of Fox. “He was always one to help out the kids that were playing for the first time, always smiling, always happy. His classmates loved him, so to see this happen to him I was like, we’ve gotta do something. He’s such a good kid, and it’s just a sad happening to a good person who was so young.”
The youngster passed away one month later, and the tournament has continued each February in his honor. In 2026, that same tournament saw 40 teams and over 350 kids play from a handful of area schools.
The tournament raised $8,000 in year two, money that was split between the Fox family and a pair of staff members who were fighting cancer. The 2026 tourney then eclipsed $10,000 in funds raised, which went to the Smile Like Mason Foundation that was started by the Fox family to fight pediatric cancer.
The Lightning have donated signed memorabilia as auction items for the Mason Fox tournament and provided ball hockey equipment.
The school recently received a fresh batch of new ball hockey sticks, another set of goalie pads, hockey balls, jerseys and a shooting trainer for the nets from the NHL as part of the MVT award. That follows the continued donation and involvement by the Lightning Community Hockey program.
“I’ve been doing this for eight years, and I want to do it for eight more years until I retire, and then maybe I’ll volunteer to come back and do it. I couldn’t have done it without the Lightning with all the equipment they’ve given and the joy that they bring to the kids when they give them the sticks and a ball to play.”
Tassone was also awarded two tickets to an NHL event, and he’s taking his son to the 2027 Discover Winter Classic in Salt Lake City to see the Utah Mammoth and Colorado Avalanche play on New Year’s Eve.