This past summer, Vince Duchene and Troy Austen played in the Bernie Nicholls Foundation golf tournament.
On one of the silent auction bidding tables were two tickets to a Feb. 22 Dallas Stars-Ottawa Senators home game.
Duchene, father of Stars’ forward Matt Duchene, said he didn’t know who’d donated the tickets but he and Austen pooled their money to buy them.
“And then the idea kind of morphed from there,” Duchene said. They decided to donate the tickets for an adult and kids’ hockey trip draw – to raise money for Trillium Lakelands District School Boards’ Feed All Four Foundation program. That’s the charity Nicholls’ foundation had earmarked in the summer golf tournament.
Vince talked to Matt about the idea, “and he loved it,” planning to meet the winners, sign jerseys and autographs, and pose for photos. Vince secured two Duchene jerseys for the winners and the realtors ran a social media contest.
The winner was Mike McFadden of McFadden’s Meat Market in Haliburton. He’d never been to a professional hockey game. Originally, the McFaddens were going to go as a couple but Duchene and Austen wanted them to take their three kids. So, McFadden said he went online and found three additional tickets for the game. Meanwhile, Duchene donated a third jersey so all the kids had one to wear at the game. Duchene also booked them dinner before the game, and transportation was donated by a local limousine company.
McFadden said it was quite a surprise and a lot of fun. “We’d never been to a game, ever.” He said it was different to watching a game on TV. “These guys, when they skate, they are so quick, you can hear them skating. It’s not like on TV, where you pick up all the sounds. These guys are just going so fast you hardly hear their skates hitting the ice.” He added the atmosphere was electric.
“It was nice… quite an experience.” He added Matt is a long-time customer and supporter of his business and was happy someone he knew had won.
And the McFaddens weren’t the only winners, with Duchene saying they raised more than $8,100 for the school-based food program.
