Pucks for Purpose Women's Business team with the Stanley Cup. Students at St. Francis Xavier University who raised $130,000 from the Pucks for a Purpose hockey games between the business school and the arts and science faculty.Supplied
The organizers: Luke White, Danny Laurson, Emma Quirin, Kate Parker, Quinn Caplice and Lindsay Gorman
The pitch: Pucks for Purpose
The cause: Raising money for the Canadian Cancer Society and motionball
Student residences at St. Francis Xavier University have a long, and sometimes controversial, history of competing against each other.
When a hockey game between two residence halls, known as BurMac, was cancelled because it got out of hand, a group of students looked for a better way to organize a new game. “We figured that we would bring it back but as a rivalry between business and arts and science,” said Lindsay Gorman, 21, a fourth-year business student who is on the organizing committee.
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They launched Pucks for Purpose, an intramural hockey game between students from the two faculties that raises money for the Canadian Cancer Society and motionball, a charity that supports Special Olympics. The first game, involving two men’s teams, was held last year and it raised $55,000.
That success led the group to expand the format and this year’s Puck for Purpose featured a men’s and a women’s game. The students hoped to raise $100,000 but they ended up taking in $130,000 before a sold-out crowd at the Charles V. Keating Centre in Antigonish, N.S.
They’ve also added a golf tournament, called Putts fore Purpose, which raised $7,000 last fall, a polar swim that brought in $3,000 and a three-on-three hockey showdown that has raised $1,000.
Ms. Gorman, who was captain of the women’s business team, said that more than 100 men and 60 women tried out for the teams, which were limited to 22 a side for men and 15 for the women.
Arts and science won the women’s game 5-1 on March 19, while business took the men’s game two day later by a score of 7-3. However, business was awarded the overall Puck for Purpose Championship Cup because their teams raised more money. Ms. Gorman said proceeds from the game and the other events help fund the charities’ programs in Nova Scotia.
“It’s been incredible. Honestly, words can’t describe it,” she said of the money raised this year. “Our goal was $100,000 and we just absolutely crushed that. So we could not be prouder of the team.”