“He hits, he jokes, he scores," reads the headline of a May 1983 profile of Bruce Tillotson, then a 21-year-old left-wing on the Ohio State Buckeyes hockey team. 

“Tiger Tilly," a tough player known for his ability to dole out hard hits on the ice, was also an infamous jokester. He reportedly even tried "wisecracking on the ice,” considering it a "moral victory" when he could get the referee to crack a smile.

Bruce's good humor never let challenges keep him down for long - even significant ones.

After suffering a severe concussion during a game and spending weeks in a coma-like state at the hospital, Tillotson got back on the ice, telling a reporter, “I can’t let the injury concern me. If I worried about being hurt again, I would not go into the corners, and if I didn’t go into the corners, I wouldn’t be playing the game.”

The corners are where the toughest action happens in hockey: where there is most likely to be rough physical play as players duke it out by the boards for control of the puck.

Bruce knew that the game of hockey comes down to the players' abilities to face their fears and play in the corners.

Bruce employed that same mental toughness over the 2 years and 8 months after his diagnosis of Stage 4 colon cancer in November 2016. He was never afraid of heading into the corners, and he fought every step of the way.

Bruce passed away shortly after midnight on Thursday, July 18th. Moments after hearing one of his favorite songs by AC/DC* he opened his eyes for a moment, looked around at his family, and then exhaled his final breath. He is survived by his wife Lisa and their three kids, Brock, Keeley, and McKinna, as well as his mother Vivian, his two brothers, Chuck, and Ken, and their families.

Bruce was born and raised outside of Toronto, Canada, leaving the country at age 19 to play hockey at Ohio State University. He transferred colleges his senior year to play hockey at Clarkson University, where he met Lisa. 

The Tillotson family moved frequently, following opportunities for Bruce’s jobs, primarily within beverage sales for Coca-Cola brands, from New York to Vermont, Kentucky, Washington and, finally, to Portland, Oregon, where the entire family resides today.

In 2012, Bruce left his sales role at Honest Tea, deciding to use his expertise to co-found Wild Friends Foods, a nut and seed butter company, with his daughter Keeley and her best friend, Erika. Bruce was Wild Friends’ co-founder, first employee, board member, and biggest fan for 8 years. Bruce’s legacy continues on within the Wild Friends brand, which is sold nationwide, as well as within his two young co-founders, who are certainly tougher negotiators for having worked with Bruce.

Everything Bruce did he did with full force and energy. As he once said, his goal as a dad was to “emphasize FUN!” and he certainly did that in spades. 

His three children have vivid childhood memories of racing to the door to tackle their dad post-work, many hours playing games, time outdoors sledding and skiing, making up silly poems and stories, and endless bad dad jokes. After his kids had grown up and left the house, Bruce continued to spend hours playing with his two black Labs, Kaiya and Luna, who became the lucky recipients of the treats and games he used to provide his young kids.

Bruce shared in a wedding toast last year that he had intended to impart four pieces of advice to his kids while he was raising them: believe in yourself, embrace change, have a sense of humor, and remember that “everything is negotiable.” 

Bruce was larger than life in every way, and he continues to be the voice in our heads: cracking jokes and encouraging us to take a few risks; to play life in the corners. 

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*Bruce never lost his sense of humor, even in his final moments. The last song he heard was Highway to Hell. Bruce was the consummate jokester, and we think that going out on that song was his final joke ("Hey mama, look at me I'm on my way to the promised land, whoo!")