hcf gala mlse cheque

The next step toward a lasting legacy

The impact of the 2015 Hockey Canada Foundation Celebrity Classic will live on in the hands of the MLSE Foundation

Wendy Graves
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December 18, 2015
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Two days in June promise to now live on forever in Toronto.

On June 10 and 11, in partnership with the MLSE Foundation, the Hockey Canada Foundation hosted its 12th annual Celebrity Classic gala and golf event. More than 800 guests – including members of Canada’s National Junior Team and National Men’s Team, which won gold at the 2015 IIHF World Junior Championship and 2015 IIHF World Championship, respectively – celebrated the achievements of the high-performance athletes in the name of fundraising for activities at the grassroots level.

During the first intermission of Thursday night’s game between the Maple Leafs and San Jose Sharks, Jim Treliving, chairman of the Hockey Canada Foundation, as well as co-chairs Brian Cooper and Mark Pacinda, presented a cheque in the amount of $351,213 to Tanya Mruck, director of operations for the MLSE Foundation.

Fans at the Air Canada Centre saw video highlights of the Celebrity Classic, as well as footage of what the money will go toward: MLSE Launch Pad, a sport-for-development facility that will open in the Moss Park area of Toronto in January 2017.

“The Hockey Canada Foundation is proud to work with the MLSE Foundation on a project that promotes sport and youth development in Toronto,” says Treliving. “While promoting accessibility to the game has always been a goal for us, so too are initiatives that foster overall health and wellness. The MLSE Launch Pad will not only allow more kids to play but also encourage their development beyond a rink or court.”

The MLSE Launch Pad will live in an existing six-floor Toronto Community Housing building.

“The main floor has been vacant for the last 20 years, so we put our hand up to come in and completely refurbish the space and [bring] programming to it as well,” says Erika Minkhorst, manager of philanthropy for MLSE Foundation. “There’s a plethora of youth and community mentors who we can engage to use the space. Our plan is to go in and complement, not change, what is already there.”

That will include creating among other things a life skills zone, classrooms, learning centres and a kitchen, as well as three multi-sport courts.

“It’ll really be a collaborative hub that’s going to focus on youth development through a number of different avenues, using sport as the hook to get kids to come out and be a part of it,” says Minkhorst.

This year marked the fifth time Toronto has hosted the Celebrity Classic; the city also held Hockey Canada Foundation’s largest annual fundraiser in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2012. From the 2012 event the foundation was able to donate $300,000 toward an updated rink and field house at Regent Park Athletic Grounds, a revitalization project that’s given 3,000 inner-city kids a safer place to skate and socialize. Alumni of Canada’s 1994 and 1995 National Junior Teams helped open the site this past January, during the 2015 world juniors.

The Regent Park project really resonated with the foundation’s directors, says Chris Bright, director of recruitment programs for Hockey Canada. “The MLSE Launch Pad is another project that’s serving inner-city youth in Toronto and something I think that we’ll be very proud to be a part of in the future.”

The Celebrity Classic moves from city to city each year, and since 2009 has contributed almost $3 million to legacy projects in six communities across the country. The Hockey Canada Foundation partners with the NHL team in its host city, raising money that gets reinvested in the community at the grassroots level.

Over the past seven years alone, the foundation has helped the Montreal Canadiens Children’s Foundation BLEU BLANC BOUGE program and the Sens Foundation build outdoor rinks to increase accessibility to the game; helped cover the registration fees for kids in Calgary affected by the 2013 floods and unprivileged kids in Vancouver; and helped the Edmonton Oilers Community Foundation refurbish rinks in two inner-city neighbourhoods.

For more information:

Esther Madziya
Manager, Communications
Hockey Canada

(403) 284-6484 

[email protected] 

Spencer Sharkey
Manager, Communications
Hockey Canada

(403) 777-4567

[email protected]

Jeremy Knight
Manager, Corporate Communications
Hockey Canada

(647) 251-9738

[email protected]

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