I always loved my “Give blood, fight Probie” T-shirt that honored Detroit Red Wing tough-guy-with-a-heart-of-gold Bob Probert, and I thought of that recently when reading a story on my game line-up sheet at a Plymouth Whalers’ game about the team’s recent charitable projects.
The Whalers recently hosted a blood drive where fans donated more than three dozen pints of blood to the local Red Cross.
The team also had a “Teddy Bear Toss” in early December, asking fans to bring new, stuffed animals to a game and to toss them onto the ice after the first Whalers’ goal of the game. That night, Alex Aleardi scored the first goal in a 7-5 Whalers’ win over the Guelph Storm and over 1,000 stuffed animals rained down upon the ice surface to be quickly whisked away and given to the Plymouth Community United Way for distribution to deserving children over the holidays.
One of the biggest charitable projects for the Whalers each year is the team’s annual Pink Out! game to benefit the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute. Players don specially designed pink hockey jerseys and sport some pretty fierce pink hair-dos for this game.
Pink duds and dos aside, the players aren’t afraid to mix things up a bit, and fans see at least one pretty-in-pink player drop his gloves when challenged by an opponent.
Even though the Sarnia Sting won this year’s Pink Out! game on October 15 by a score of 5-4, the real winner that night was the Karmanos Cancer Institute.
Fund raising continues for Karmanos Cancer Institute through this season with events like Whaler alumni hockey jersey auctions. The Whalers’ Pink Out! effort raised more than $30,000 for breast cancer research programs at Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute during the three previous years, so it will be interesting to see how much they net for their efforts this season.
I love taking my camera to Pink Out! games, and here are a few of my favorite shots from this year’s game.
Check out my story about last year’s Pink Out! game here.
© Dominique King 2012 All rights reserved
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