If you think a 3-hour hockey game on television is fatiguing, take a look at what these Calgarians are hoping to achieve on May 6-16th, 2012! At this time, the longest hockey game is 243 continuous hours, these 40 individuals hope to achieve 250 hours.
Every year in Calgary, a group of oilpatch workers has a hockey tournament called Oilympics, where they raise money for charity. Oilympics hockey tourney that has raised over $1 million for local charities over the years.
Alex Halat is one of the organizers and last year struggled to think of what more they could do to help. His thoughts turned to his friend Lyall Marshall, whose 6-year-old daughter Diamond has a very rare cancer. Unfortunately, Lyall’s wife passed away several years ago from a rare cancer as well. Alex was compelled to organize something in Diamond’s honour and from that created the plan for the World’s Longest Hockey Game in support of the Alberta Children’s Hospital
About Diamond Marshall
Diamond Ann Marshall, was born June 2005 to the proud parents of Lyall and Memory Marshall (Jimmy). Three months after Diamond was born, Memory was diagnosed with a rare pregnancy cancer called GTN and succumbed to the aggressive disease in January 2007 shortly after her 32nd birthday (1974-2007).
In early 2011 at the age of 5, Diamond was diagnosed with a rare form of advanced cancer that became life threatening and recovered in PICU and the Oncology unit for 8-weeks.
Many of the initial life saving procedures were done by the staff at PICU. They not only cared for Diamond while on life support, but also informed and educated her parents hour to hour on the medical issues. Hours slowly improved into days and she was transferred into Unit 1 (the Oncology unit) at the Alberta Children’s Hospital. Miraculously with chemotherapy, radiation and surgeries, Diamond started to heal and has also relearned to walk, talk and hold her own after several months of rehabilitation. Diamond continues her on going treatment
with the goal to become cancer free.
Diamond Marshall “hugged” the Duchess of Cambridge Catherine (Kate) when she arrived in Calgary last July. It was Diamond’s wish to meet a “real princess” and not only did she do that, but she also brought smiles and tears to many across the world who saw her picture with the Duchess.
About the Charity Hockey Game
So far, sponsorships has exceeded $360,000 and $49,165 in personal donations. You can donate through the “donate now” button on their website: http://www.hockeymarathon.com, which links to the Children’s Hospital site.
People can help by donating, or by following them on Twitter or Facebook to help spread the word!
