Dear KERRY GOULET and NHLPA members, My name is Sami Mantere and I run an ice hockey program called Ice Factor in Adelaide, Australia. Our target group is high school kids that are disengaged and at risk of dropping out of school. At the moment we have 14 high schools and 170 students around South Australia involved in the Program. NHLPA has been a great supporter of our program for several years. NHLPA’s equipment donations have allowed us to bring new schools to the Program as well as helped us stock some spare equipment to replace the old and broken equipment. The equipment that you provided us with this year helped us establish yet another team, Seaford Strikers. You might also like to know a team that got equipment from you a few years ago, Bowden Brompton Purple Reign, won their first ever Ice Factor challenge cup this term. I have added letters from the members of these teams to my correspondence with you. If it wasn’t for the NHLPA equipment, there is no way that the Ice Factor Program would have been able to expand to what it is now, helping this many students. Apart from bringing the equipment, the NHLPA and Kerry Goulet has been able to provide our students something even bigger: You have given our students a dream. For the last two years Kerry has brought himself and some NHL superstars to meet our students. It is very hard to describe how much meeting Keith and Wayne Primeau, Ian Cole and others has meant to our students. I would like to try and make justice of the impact you have had on us. Many of our students have written school reports and assignments on the NHL players, some have even done maths work on NHL players salaries. Once again, most of these students have not been overly keen on school work previously. But the biggest thing has been the impact of meeting the players, shaking hands with them and sharing ice with the stars. The hype before you came to visit us was something special, especially amongst the players that was at our events last year and knew what was going on. I can not thank the NHLPA, Kerry Goulet, Keith and Wayne Primeau as well as Andrew Gordon and Ian Cole enough for coming to Adelaide and meet our students. Once again without wanting to sound too negative, our students are used to being treated fairly poorly and seen in a negative way. So to have you guys come and show an amazing amount of professionalism and respect is a life changing prospect for our students. Both on and off the ice your representatives were doing exactly what we wished they had done and more. On a recent Ice Factor fundraiser we showed a video clip containing material and interviews from your 2013 events in Adelaide and the whole room of 500 guests and very important people in Adelaide gave you a round of applause! Once again, I would like to thank you for your continuous support towards the Program. I hope that the letters you receive from the students will give you better idea of the impact you have on these young people. Best Regards, Sami Mantere
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 03:08:20 +0000
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