Dream a Dream 17
On August 17th, 2013, The Fort McMurray Oil Barons of the AJHL and Notre Dame Hounds SJHL, will square off in a charity hockey game to raise awareness and funds for cancer.
The reason we have chosen this cause is for fallen Hound and former classmate Mandi Schwartz. After completing her high school education in her home of Wilcox, Mandi accepted a full academic/ athletic scholarship to Yale University. After playing two seasons and over 70 straight games with the bulldogs Mandi was diagnosed with AML (Acute Myeloid Leukemia).
After Mandi beat cancer the first time, she returned to Yale to begin playing hockey again. Unfortunately though, the cancer returned and Mandi had to cut short her goal to re-join her teammates on the ice, instead returning home to Saskatchewan for chemotherapy treatment. In the interim, her friends and teammates joined hands to help spread Mandi's story around the world. Throughout her battle, bone marrow drives were set up across North America in order to find Mandi a match for a bone marrow transplant through organizations like OneMatch and Become Mandi's Hero. Although a record amount of people were signed up for the bone marrow registry and a few perfect matches were found, Mandi passed away on April 3rd, 2011.
Despite Mandi no longer being with us, she continues to inspire. We hope to nurture this inspirtation and help it grow here in our community and around Canada as we try to raise money and register more people to the OneMatch database. As individuals, we can come together to make a large difference, just like Mandi did.
Find more info at http://www.dreamadream17.com