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Greg Urig and his team are going to make a difference by putting the puck in the net.
The UT Ice Hockey Club, of which Urig is president, is hitting the ice against the Monroe County Community College (MCCC) Hockey Club on Jan. 25 in honor of national mentoring month this year.
The game's proceeds will go to the Big Brothers Big Sisters programs in Monroe County, Mich., and in the Toledo area.
"We hope to bring awareness to what a great program Big Brothers Big Sisters is and to bring attention to mentoring in general," said Urig, a sophomore majoring in Mechanical Engineering. "Hopefully, this event will become annual."
Urig also hopes to bring attention to the hockey club because it is not well known, especially since there is no ice rink on campus and all of the team's home games are played at the Tam O'Shanter Ice Arena on Sylvania Avenue, he said.
Most of the club team's funding for games comes from players' pockets, Urig said, and on top of that, the team's members are students, so putting together special events or benefits is hard to do.
However, special events are something the entire team would like to do more, Urig said.
"We are just starting to get very organized and are trying to get our name out there," said Kevin Hauser, a junior majoring in Physical Therapy at UT and the vice president of the UT club. "We want people to know that it's not just about playing hockey, and that we want to be one of those organizations that help people."
The idea for the event was presented to the UT Ice Hockey Club by the MCCC, Urig said, and it is the first benefit game between the two teams.
Barbie J. Harrison, the director of Big Brothers Big Sisters in the Toledo Area, is excited about the awareness this game will bring to the BBBS program and to the work that the program does.
"It says to me that UT is embracing the work we do with a benefit game to support the children we serve in a one to one mentorship," Harrison said.
The children in the BBBS program need mentoring, and being involved in a sport helps the child stay focused, Greg Paddison said.
Paddison, a member of the Monroe County Community College Hockey Club, said the open skate before the game will hopefully be something fun for the children, and maybe even encourage them to get involved in a sport.
The game will be at Canlan Ice Sports in Monroe, Mich., with a buffet-style dinner beginning at 6 p.m. Around 7 p.m., there will be an open skate session with the children from the Big Brothers Big Sisters program and players from both teams.
After the open skate, there will be a brief speech made by Randy Richardville, a senator from Monroe, regarding January as the National Mentoring Month before the game begins, said Paddison.
All the Big Brothers Big Sisters participants are invited to stay and there will be no charge for admission, he said.
The UT Ice Hockey team is a non-varsity Division II team in the American Collegiate Hockey Association as an independent team. There are 21 members, with 19 skaters and two goalies. They typically play between 30 and 32 games a season or about 16 games per semester, Hauser said.
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