Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The puck dropped at 9 a.m. today at the LECOM Harborcenter right next to the KeyBank Arena for the annual 11 Day Power Play, where thousands of players will take the ice in shifts for eleven days straight.
Since the 2017 inception of the event, over $8 million dollars has been raised for Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Oishei Children’s Hospital, the Make a Wish Foundation, and Camp Good Days.
Mike Lesakowski, Co-Founder of the 11 Day Powerplay said that the event this year is off to a good start.
"This morning was awesome. We dropped the puck at 9am for the very first shift, and we've got players playing all day today and we're gonna have a nice opening celebration at 6:30 p.m. tonight," said Lesakowski, "The players are doing great. This is only the first shift, so it's just underway, but everybody's ready to go and most importantly, they raised a ton of money for this, this first shift has raised over $16,000. That's just a glimpse into what we've got going for the next 11 days."
The opening celebration is this Thursday at 6:30 p.m.
"We've got a bunch of family events going on. We've got the merchandise table, we've got refreshments served, Southern Tier Brewery is here. We'll have all of our top sponsors here and 'The Frozen 40,' the guys and girls that play in the world record game back in November are playing against the top fundraisers for this year. So it's going to be a lot of fun," said Lesakowski,
"If anybody's around town, please come on down it's free to stop in. Have a beer, have a coffee and buy shirt or hat and please come down and root on the players," Lesakowski added.
To see the full schedule and lineups, which includes a shift from WBEN's sister station, WGR 550, click here.