On Sunday, 40 people will attempt to play hockey in downtown Buffalo for 11 straight days, raising money to fight cancer as part of the fifth edition of the 11-Day Power Play.
Not surprisingly, three of those literally living in the rink will be “Men for Others.”
Three Canisius High School graduates will be on the ice for up to 10 hours a day, around the clock, from start to finish: Peter Merlo ’88 and Michael Meade ’87 will play while Mark Paradowski ’99 will be one of three officials skating regular shifts, just like the players. When they’re not part of the game, they’ll be sleeping on temporary beds a few steps from the rink at Buffalo Riverworks.
“If there’s one phrase that you can take out of the school that would resonate when you’re 14, and today, regardless when you graduated, is ‘Men for Others,’” said Meade, the CEO of Sullivan’s Brewing Company.
“So to get the opportunity to do this, it’s not even hard to think about it,” Meade said during the hockey trio’s visit to CHS last week. “You don’t have to wrestle with – should I put myself on the line for 11 days to try to help people that have had very, very difficult things happen to them.”
The 11-Day Power Play was founded in 2016, co-founded by Amy Lesakowski and her husband, Mike. It was eight years after Amy was diagnosed with breast cancer and the same year Mike’s mother, Evelyn, died of lung cancer. In 2017, two teams of 20 men, including cancer survivor Merlo (as well as classmate Mike Lawley ’88), set a world record for the longest hockey game by playing, eating and sleeping at Buffalo’s HarborCenter.
Photo Credit: Keith McShea