Not Too Shabby For Our First Year

About this time last year, our Dawg Nation founder and leader Marty Richardson had an idea. It had been a pretty tough year in The Nation, as we had lost one of our beloved players, Jack Kelly, to a devastating disease that took him in the matter of only a few months. We had a couple of guys that were battling cancer, and another player that shattered his ankle playing hockey, and was having problems with infection after surgery. All in all, we've had better years.

Informally, when one of our players ever got sick or injured, Dawg Nation was always there. We would pass the hat as a group, and would always find a way to help the guy in trouble. But Marty wanted to take this a step further. He proposed to a small group of Dawg Nation members that we create a charity foundation that would not only help our guys, but would also help other adult hockey players in the Rocky Mountain Region.

Of course he got a buy-in from everyone he talked to, and the Dawg Nation Hockey Foundation was born. Eight beer league hockey players, who collectively didn't know their asses from their elbows about starting a charity and raising money, formed the original board of directors. God help us.

Our first project would be to put on a hockey tournament the last week in April at The Edge Arena in Littleton, Colorado. In the meantime, in order to raise money for our startup costs, Marty's dad, Graham, volunteered his pond in Indian Hills for local youth skaters to come up and use. Spearheaded by board member Bern Levesque, young players, usually mites, would come up and enjoy the true outdoor hockey experience, and their parents would all make a small contributions to our charity. The money we made kept us going as we moved towards April.

We had three months to put together all the details for the tournament that we could call "Dawg Bowl I" (because we were gung-ho enough to believe there would be a Dawg Bowl II) . All we had to do was find a bunch of teams that would play in a tourney that they'd never heard of, secure ice time for an entire weekend the The Edge, find referees, look for companies that would give us free food and beer, and search for organizations that would donate expensive items for our silent auction.

Other than that, no problem. Piece of cake.

So the board members, and anyone else that was naive enough to help us out, got to work. We traveled all over the city, talking to beer league teams about our cause, and advertised in every adult tournament website where we could do it for free. We hoped for 16 teams. We got 24.

The Edge never thought we'd get that many squads, so they didn't originally set aside enough ice time to accommodate everyone. We twisted their arms a bit, but we got all the ice we needed. The referees were a little easier- one of our first beneficiaries would be a ref that got hit by a car earlier in the year, so they all jumped in, and most donated their fees for the cause. Terrific group of human beings, the refs.

We had several meetings with some beer and food companies, and we must have done a good job at selling our event. Breckenridge Brewery and Pabst donated enough beer for the entire weekend, so that we could sell it for donations and bank all the profits for the foundation. Del Taco, Shamrock Foods, Jimmy Dean, U.S.  Foods and even the Keebler elves gave us tons of food, so that we could barbeque and keep everything. Unbelievable.

And then we contacted anyone that knew anyone in not only hockey, but other sports, trying to get some decent items for our silent auction. The response was overwhelming. When they heard about our unique cause, helping adult hockey players, the valuable swag poured in. The Colorado Avalanche gave us signed sticks and jerseys, the Colorado Rockies sent over bats and balls, the Colorado Rapids all autographed a soccer ball, and we even got ex-Bronco Ed McCaffrey to sign some receiver gloves for us.

But it didn't stop there. Through other contacts, we were able to score, among other things, a signed Edmonton Oilers jersey, a complete signed jersey from the Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks, a signed helmet from Alexander Ovechkin, and believe it or not, a jersey autographed by Wayne Freakin' Gretzky. Lockheed Martin was going to sell some valuable video games from their break room, but instead, gave them to the cause.

So now we had tons of great items to auction off, and tons of pretty hockey wives to turn on the charm and sell to the beer leaguers that would be playing. We were all set.

The weekend went off better than any of us ever expected. All the games were played on time, there were no bad incidents, and we got nothing but great feedback from the players. The weather was perfect, so we sold an ocean of beer, and the barbeque was a complete success. And we pulled in around $13,000 just from the silent auction.

When we originally started planning Dawg Bowl I, we hoped we would make $10,000 for the weekend. We ended up at over $30,000. And every penny after expenses went to the foundation. The hundreds of hours that everyone in Dawg Nation put in were well worth it, and we couldn't have been more proud.

After a bit of rest, we tackled the next event, which would be a night at the Comedy Works. The idea came from Mike Raftery, who managed the club, and happened to have a son that had played on the pond during the winter. Dawgs Board member Bern Levesque took the ball, and went to work setting up the details.

Local comedians agreed to work on their night off for free, which would mean Dawg Nation would pick up 100% of the gate for the charity. The best part was when Josh Blue, who won "Last Comic Standing" the previous year, called up Marty Richardson, said he had heard about our cause, and asked if he could be part of the event. Uh...yes Josh, we believe we can find room for you.

The evening was terrific. Over 400 people showed up and were destroyed for three hours by the funniest comics in Denver. All seven were outstanding, especially Josh Blue, who has Cerebral Palsey and incorporates it into his act. The talent got great feedback from the audience, the Comedy Works got to sell a bunch of beer to hockey players, and Dawg Nation raked in over $4000. It could not have gone better.

Then in August, Dawg Nation put on a golf tournament at the Green Gables Country Club. Again, none of us had ever done that, but what the heck, we were quick learners. In just a few months, we gathered over 120 players, and enough generous sponsors to make the day very valuable to our organization.

Again, the event was terrific. The weather was beautiful, we again sold a bunch of donated Pabst beer, all the players enjoyed the round, and we made a ton of cash for the foundation. We were able to scratch a big check for a goalie named Tim Kmetz, who had battled cancer and several other ailments since he was a kid- and most recently had an operation to repair four hernias. That's what we're all about, and it sure felt good.

Finally in November, we hosted the Yellowstone Quake and Gillette Wild, both junior teams in Wyoming, for a game in which they would play each other at Pepsi Center after an Avalanche game. Dawgs board member Mike Pijanowski, who has two sons that play for the Quake, took the lead on this project, and did an outstanding job.   

The Avalanche not only agreed to provide the ice for the game, but would also give our foundation five dollars for every ticket sold by our group to that night's contest against the Edmonton Oilers. Between both teams and Dawg Nation, over 250 tickets were sold, meaning another 1200 or so bucks would come in for the cause.

The kids, almost all in their late teens, got to fulfill their dream of playing on NHL ice. Then the next afternoon, the Quake played against the best hockey players that Dawg Nation could provide in a friendly game at The Edge arena, and hammered us 10-3 in a game that wasn't as close as the score indicated. But we all had fun, and raised almost $1000 for the Dakota Ridge High School hockey team.

So that was year one for the Dawg Nation Hockey Foundation. We think it wasn't too bad for a bunch of meathead hockey players. Including our events and people that randomly donated other money, we grossed over $90,000 (our goal was $25K). And we wrote seven checks to hockey players all over Colorado who needed our help. Boys and girls, we could not possibly be more proud.

We have big plans for 2012 as we try to continue to grow as a foundation. We will indeed put on Dawg Bowl II the first week in June, and hope to sign up over 30 teams to play. Our golf tourney will again happen in September, we'll have another night at Comedy Works, and the pond is open again this winter. And we're always looking for other fundraising ideas, so if you have any suggestions, please don't hesitate to jump in and get hold of us.

Dawg Nation would like to thank the hundreds of people that have chipped in this year. We never could have achieved the level of success we have without you, and please don't be surprised when we knock on your door for more help in 2012.