Hockey and Hope

“Sticks down, drop the puck. Sticks down, drop the puck.”  Those were the words Jeff used to give Evie a quick tutorial in how to drop the puck to start the Admiral’s hockey game on March 7, 2010.  It’s not every day that a parent gets to be on the jumbotron with his or her kid; but on that day, it was a dream come true for Jeff and Evie; okay, mainly Jeff.

       Sometimes, you just never can tell what might be waiting around the corner for you.  When you deal with WAGR Syndrome, you start to, unfortunately, wait for something bad.  As I sat on the opposite side of the ice from Evie and Jeff, I marveled at the complete joy I was experiencing at that moment in time.  We were in the midst of a miracle.  We were able to spread the word to an ice rink full of people about WAGR Syndrome, the lack of knowledge about WAGR Syndrome in the general public, and the need for awareness so that people like Evie can get the early intervention, both medical and educational, that they need.  I remember the feeling of “How did I get here?” when I stood in the hospital room with Evie after she was diagnosed with cancer; and I had those same thoughts as I sat at the Bradley Center the afternoon of our special game, but it came with a different emotion attached to it.

       This all started when a friend of mine on Facebook sent me an e-mail asking if I’d like to do a fundraiser for the IWSA by having a night out with the IWSA during a Milwaukee Admirals hockey game.  Really?  Was that even possible?  Of course I would love to do something like that, but I never thought it would come to be.  We have all seen the football players dressed in pink and throwing out a pink football for breast cancer awareness, but, as Tom Cox responded to me when I asked the IWSA leaders if they thought we could endorse this hockey game endeavor:  How else will we ever see the American League Baseball players wearing zebra stripped caps if we don’t start with this hockey game?

       Aaron, my friend, is the play-by-play announcer for the Admirals, a team that plays hockey in Milwaukee, WI and are affiliated with the International Hockey League team, The Nashville Predators.  The way we were going to raise money was by Jeff and I selling tickets to the game through invitation of our family and friends.  We were to have the people we referred contact Aaron directly for the tickets, and we would get $4 of every ticket sold by Jeff or me.  As we all well know, it’s tough to get a lot of people to commit to an event…so the tickets were hard to sell.  My sister and brother in law made the long 6 hour journey from their home in MN.  Jeff’s parents, uncle, cousin, and her boyfriend came along to Milwaukee as well.  Some wonderful friends of ours The Antonsons and the Bieris brought their families too.  It meant so much to have people rally around us to raise funds for the IWSA and too see Evie on her special day. 

But, those ticket sales alone weren’t going to equate to very much.  Aaron wanted to do more.  So, he came up with the idea to have a silent auction during the game to raise additional funds for our cause as well.  He solicited items from different hockey players around the country.  We had autographed hockey pucks from people like Chris Chelios and Patrick Kane; autographed cinch-sacs by players like Jack Skille and Jake Dowell; a goalie stick signed by the entire Admirals team; and two jerseys that were autographed as well.  Our silent auction yielded nearly $700 when it was all said and done.

Outside of the financial gain for the IWSA, I was interviewed on the jumbotron during an intermission regarding WAGR Syndrome, Evie, and the IWSA; and I was interviewed live on radio as well.  Wow!  To be able to reach such a large number of people was monumental in my mind. 

In short, we all had a blast, and we raised money for a great cause.  Many people have said to me, “Tammie, you do such wonderful things for “x, y or z”.  But, I look at it differently:  it doesn’t take incredible people to do incredible things…it takes incredible opportunities and the courage within oneself to take those opportunities and make the most of them.