Following up on and inspired by the charitable work of sites like Bonk's Mullet and The Production Line (with support from our SB Nation friends Winging It In Motown), which supported the Sens Foundation and the Children's Hospital of Michigan Foundation, respectively, we at PensBurgh decided to do our own type of charity donation drive.
Ours will support and be donated directly to Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Foundation.
What we decided to do was to accept pledges for donations based on what happens in certain Pens games, as well as the Olympics. It's a fun way to make donating a little bit more vested and interactive. Our pledge drive will end after the Stadium Series game vs. the Blackhawks on March 1st.
NHL REGULAR SEASON GAME PLEDGES
Games that will be involved in the pledge drive (with the associated SB Nation site next to it):
- Saturday, January 25th - Penguins @ Stars (Defending Big D)
- Monday, January 27th - Sabres @ Penguins (Die By the Blade)
- Thursday, January 30th - Penguins @ Kings (Jewels from the Crown)
- Saturday, February 1st - Penguins @ Coyotes (Five for Howling)
- Monday, February 3rd - Senators @ Penguins (Silver Seven Sens)
- Wednesday, February 5th - Penguins @ Sabres (Die By the Blade)
- Friday, February 7th - Rangers @ Penguins (Blueshirt Banter)
- Thursday, February 27th - Canadiens @ Penguins (Habs Eyes on the Prize)
- Saturday, March 1st - Penguins @ Blackhawks - Stadium Series (Second City Hockey)
OLYMPIC PLEDGES
Any players or teams are available. For an Olympic refresher, you can link to a roster preview and other information about each country's team in PensBurgh's Olympic Preview Series that Natasha (@trunkzilla) completed recently.
Make it random, make it fun! Pledge for your country. Pledge for your favorite player. Pledge hits for PK Subban for Canada. Pledge goals for Patrick Kane and Phil Kessel or saves for Ryan Miller for USA. Pledge for Olli Maatta and Jussi Jokinen for Finland. Pledge for Sidney Crosby and Chris Kunitz for Canada because they're going to be dynamite! Pledge for first-time Olympians Anze Kopitar for Slovenia, Zemgus Girgensons for Latvia, Valeri Nichushkin for Russia! Pledge for Henrik Lundqvist, Erik Karlsson, Oliver Ekman-Larsson for Sweden, Mats Zuccarello for Norway, Evgeni Malkin for Russia, Martin Hanzal for Czech Republic. Pledge whatever you'd like and have fun with it (based on anything that can be quantified)!
You can pledge on all Olympic games, teams and players. Please refer to the full Olympic tournament schedule here.
Examples of pledges that could be made:
- Saturday January 25th - Pens vs. Stars - $10 for each goal the Penguins score
- Olympics - USA vs. Russia - $1 for every shot on goal by USA
- Stadium Series game - $1 for each goalie save
- Flat rate pledges can also be made, if that is what you desire.
Here in this Google Documents Spreadsheet you will find a sheet with each Pens game as well as a space for any Olympic pledges. There will be a space for Name, Donation, and email address. If you're not comfortable leaving your information in the sheet, you can definitely feel free to contact me directly by email with your information at mjdarnay@comcast.net.
Link to the Pledge Spreadsheet
The tabs at the bottom sort between each event, whether it be the Olympics, or each game, to keep individual game events separate.
Example of my pledge (an Olympic one)
At the end of the whole pledge period and after all the games, we will send out emails to everyone with our PayPal information and payment instructions. Unfortunately, PayPal is our only option for donations. You will have some time to figure out/set up PayPal account information if you need to, since we won't be collecting until March.
Feel free to make your pledge now and figure that out in the meantime!
Our goal here is to raise as much money as we can, and have some fun doing it! We hope everyone will join in and help us make a nice donation to the Foundation!
Edit: One last note: at the end of our drive, the top 10 participants in our pledge drive will win a prize (could be a t-shirt, book, bobble head, sock monkey, etc). So keep coming back and keep pledging! It’s fun, it’s competitive, and it’s for the kids. Thanks everyone!