AFTER spending around 252 hours in frigid temperatures, a group of 40 courageous Albertans have completed what is believed to be the world’s longest hockey game — all while making a difference for cancer patients.

This year is the seventh edition of the World’s Longest Hockey Game, a fundraising initiative which has raised over US$5.47 million since 2003 for “leading-edge equipment and research at the Cross Cancer Institute,” according to the group’s website.

The event is organized by Brent Saik, owner of Alberta Sports Vision Institute. In 1994, Saik lost his father to cancer, followed by his wife Susan a few years later. Rocked by their deaths, Saik decided to channel his grief into advocacy and continued raising funds for medical research.

“The Alberta government was awesome in helping me and explaining to me how it would be possible,” Saik told CTV News Channel on Monday about receiving a provincial exemption to organize the game amid current pandemic rules. “We had to do an incredible amount of things to make that work.”

Participants in the marathon were required to self-isolate and were tested for COVID-19 daily.

The inaugural World’s Longest Hockey Game was held in 2003 and consisted of 40 players playing 80-consecutive hours. Since then, the length of the game and the amount raised in donations have substantially increased.

This year, the group played for 252 hours with Team Hope capturing the title 2,649 to 2,528 over Team Cure. More importantly, the game raised more than US$1.84 million and counting for charity.

While the group must wait for approval from Guinness World Records before the record can be official, they also broke their own records for lowest temperatures, most pucks shattered, most blisters, and most money raised during the event.

“This was a piece of cake,” Saik told CTV News. “Our conditions were fine. Our prayers are for people. Their conditions are a lot worse than what we went through and that’s why we do this.”

This year’s game began at Sherwood Park in Strathcona County, Alberta, Canada. on Feb. 4 and lasted 11 days. Over the week-and-a-half, an anonymous donor matched donations to the event up to US$100,000 and the Edmonton Football Club donated half of the proceeds of a 50/50 draw. Fundraising efforts for this year’s game will support a clinical trial of a new cancer drug called PCLX-001, which has shown positive results in treating blood cancers.

(SD-Agencies)