Hockey tournament raises $425K for Stollery Children's Hospital
More than 1,500 players and 82 hockey teams spent the long weekend competing in the 11th annual Stollery Family Day Classic.
While kids wanted the chance to hoist the Stollery Cup, they were also skating for a good cause.
Steve Serdachny, the tournament founder and chairperson of the event, said $425,000 was raised this year.
Before this weekend’s event, more than $3.2 million had been raised since the tournament’s inception, pushing them past the $3.6 million mark as of Monday.
“Kids have done an amazing job, and families have done an amazing job to support them to do this,” Serdachny said.
This year’s top earner was 13-year-old Riley Landsperg, raising more than $26,000 for the Stollery.
“I have a lot of help from my parents, knock on doors, you know just a lot of motivation knowing all those families need help,” he said.
The second top earner was 11-year-old Maxx George. His family has a personal connection to the Stollery.
“Our two sisters when they were younger got diseases and sadly passed away,” he explained to CTV News Edmonton. “So we always do the Stollery fundraisers and stuff and raise money for them.”
Maxx’s mom, Kim Geroge, said the Stollery provided their family with much-needed support while they were going through an incredibly painful time in their lives, and on two separate occasions as Maxx previously noted.
“Years later, we had another daughter who passed as well. She actually never made it into the Stollery, but the Stollery still reached out to us, nurses, doctors, just all different departments to see if they could help in any way possible and that was six years later.”
Maxx was able to raise $9,000 and credits those closest to him for being able to give back to the children’s hospital.
“It makes me feel lucky that all these family and friends donate to us,” he smiled.
“They’re so advanced, and any support we can do to keep that going and hopefully help all our children in the future,” Kim added.
“I don’t want to end up back there, but if we do for any reason I would certainly want the best care possible.”
More than 1,500 hockey players and 82 teams competed in the Stollery Family Day Classic over the long weekend.
While the classic is about celebrating health, according to Serdachny it’s also about teaching the kids to “think about others through the game of hockey.”
Adding that getting the kids to fundraise for the Stollery helps build their empathy and raise awareness of the important work the children's hospital does.
“Kind of directing them towards healthy living,” he said. “But also understanding that a lot of kids aren’t lucky enough to play hockey and other sports and activities."
“It’s incredible,” Kim added. “Like with Maxx’s team, you start a team at the beginning of the year with strangers and now everyone is just family, and you’re all supporting each other, raising money.”
“Everyone here is here for the same reason.”
For more information on the Family Day Classic or to apply to participate next year, click here.
With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Joe Scarpelli
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
President Joe Biden calls Japan and India 'xenophobic' nations that do not welcome immigrants
President Joe Biden has called Japan and India “xenophobic” countries that do not welcome immigrants, lumping the two with adversaries China and Russia as he tried to explain their economic circumstances and contrasted the four with the U.S. on immigration.