Why are we doing this?

Hockey is a huge passion of my brother Joey and I. It’s something that we have loved since we were kids. The first time the Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley cup in 1996 - we knew it was something that would be a part of our lives forever. We would use our pillows as our leg pads and chest pads, our baseball gloves and anything else we could find to make ourselves goalies! Hockey has also had a positive impact on us by making us very close as brothers. With both of us being goalies we know and understand what each other goes through, we are like coaches to each other. Hockey is just a way of life for us, the excitement, the thrill, and the agony!! As goalies we find we can be loved when we win or blamed when we don’t. We will never let that stop us from wanting to be better. Even when we have those tough stretches that make us want to quit we never do because our passion for the game won’t let us.

Cancer has always been a key piece to our family’s life. Sadly we have lost two “Great-Grandma’s” to breast cancer. With that being said our Mom has to be checked regularly. Our Mom and our two Grandmas’ were the key inspirations for the creation of the “Goalies Against Cancer “. Our family has participated in events such as the “Race for the Cure” here in Denver and we found it to be a rewarding yet emotional time. We try to support fundraisers held by others as often as we can. This is what our fundraiser is all about, we want to take two important parts of our lives and hopefully touch the lives of others who need help and support.

The idea for Goalies Against Cancer came up while my brother and I were driving back from playing some drop in ice hockey. We talked about how we could make some kind of program that would combine our passion for hockey and also help to raise money for cancer research. I mentioned we should use pink goalie sticks, but pink is such an unusual color for a stick and they would be hard to find. Ordering custom pink sticks would be a little expensive and take away from what we could donate. My brother took this idea and started contacting everyone in the hockey business he could think of and ended up getting donated custom pink sticks and pink jerseys for us to use for our project during the month of October. He has connected us with companies such as: Planet Goalie, Christian Hockey, Brooklynite, and Jerry’s Sports Cards. Some of these companies as well as others have donated their time, supplies and support. He has also gotten professional athletes to sign items for us to auction off to help raise additional money for our cause.

When this idea was born we never thought it would become this big and we would love to see it grow even bigger. Cancer is such a devastating disease and we would love to see it treatable or non-existent. In order for that to happen, foundations such as Susan G. Komen for the Cure® need our donations to keep their research going, so that one day cancer is a thing of the past and it cannot bring heart ache to families.

Thank you for reading about our project and I hope you pass this onto your family and friends!

-Brandon