The Saskatoon blades are sticking it to diabetes in Friday night’s game dedicated to diabetes awareness.
Evan Gardner, Blades goalie and number 35, has Type 1 diabetes and designed his goalie helmet for Diabetes Awareness Month and to share his personal journey.
The helmet will be won in Friday’s game and then will be auctioned off the following week to raise money for Diabetes Canada’s D-camps.
The helmet features symbols like the medical alert, a minion with a insulin pump and the puzzle piece – to honour his little brother with autism.
“There’s some small, small details on the minions that I’m having a pump. It’s just something I have to help manage my diabetes and thought it’d be kind of a cool detail to kind of add to it for diabetes,” said Gardner.
The team will be raising funds through the auction and a chuck a puck event at the game, with the hopes of raising $60,000.
Diabetes is a fairly common condition and many people are affected.
“Just knowing that one in three Canadians diagnosed every three minutes. So, you know, the chances of, say, an arena full of 10,000 people, you know, it’s likely that 3,000, if not more of those are affected,” said Tawnia Butler, Diabetes Canada manager of special events.
Zac Olsen, Blades player number 9, also has Type 1 diabetes and this game is important to him to make sure people understand the condition and know what it is.
“Not really any of my friends knew what diabetes was. So everyone getting to know what diabetes is about and having on the whole game dedicated diabetes, it’s pretty cool,” said Olsen.
Olsen added that he hopes this game will show children with diabetes that nothing can stop them and diabetes doesn’t need to put a halt to their dreams.
“I think they’re going to look up to it and it’s going to mean a lot for them because I know when I was first diagnosed, I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep playing hockey and like, I didn’t know what my world was going to look like. But I think them, after seeing this, they’re going to realize that it’s not over and that they can keep going,” said Olsen.
Diabetes Canada shared that sentiment, adding that is their whole purpose.
“That’s exactly what we’re trying to accomplish, is providing, you know, that foresight for these children to understand that there’s nothing stopping them from, you know, going after their dreams and their goals,” said Butler.
Donations can be made by texting STICKIT to 20222 or by participating in the auction on the Blades website.