The Sunshine Coast Minor Hockey Association (SCMHA)’s Bantam Blues C team raised a little over $2,500 by shooting 10,000 pucks on Oct. 17.
Fundraising coordinator for the Bantam Blues C team Aron Reid said that their goal was to shoot 10,000 pucks in four hours, but they did it in just over three and a half.
“Basically it works out to 42 pucks a minute on average. But what we did to get around it a little bit, is we had two guys shooting at the same time in two locations,” Reid said.
The Bantam Blues C Team were divided into two groups, one in the Trail Bay Mall parking lot and one in the Gibsons’ IGA parking lot.
“We had the running total going every half an hour,” Reid said. “We would get text messages from one to the other.”
There are 19 kids on the Bantam C team and about 14 of them participated in the 10,000 pucks challenge. Plus they had a lot of support from parents.
“We needed a lot of parents because they had to shuttle the pucks,” Reid said. “Once they do their round of shots, the parents gather up the pucks and get the next kid going.”
Reid said the $2,500 raised through pledges will be put towards bringing in special coaches to train the players as well as getting the team to a tournament in Cloverdale on Dec. 27.
“The Tournament in Cloverdale is $1,200 – and that doesn’t include hotel fees,” Reid said. “From that we’re going to manage where the money goes.”
Gibsons Building Supplies offered hockey tickets as a prize for the top pledge earner. Bryson Geue won the tickets and got to see the Canucks play the Detroit Red Wings with one of his parents. Trail Bay Source for Sports also provided prizes for the kids.
Reid said that next year he would like to grow the event and involve all of the teams in the SCMHA.
“I’m going to put it forward to the league that we do this as a league-wide event and make this a primary fundraiser for the whole league,” Reid said. “So instead of just being one team, maybe we’ll have all the teams and maybe instead of calling it 10,000 pucks we’ll call it 100,000 pucks.”
