It was telegraphed a few days ago but Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid announced it officially in a Thursday afternoon video conference call.
The Oilers, as a collective group of players, are contributing $100,000 to the Oilers Entertainment Group to assist with COVID-19 support in the community with the exact details on how these funds will be allocated yet to be determined.
“There are so many people affected — so many groups in the community affected. We want to be able to assist and help as many people as possible. The money we hope will go a long way toward helping people,” said McDavid.
“We felt it was important to pledge our support to the community during this difficult time. This is a small gesture but we hope it can help those who are struggling.
“It’s something that had been in the works for some time with a lot of back and forth. We wanted to do something right away but it’s gone a little bit slower than we anticipated.
“We were just trying to figure out the way to go about it with the logistics and how they were going to do that. That was the slower part.
“I think it’s important that the Oilers are contributing to the community. Alberta and Oil Country is suffering both through the economic times and obviously through COVID-19 so it’s definitely good for us to step up and help as many people as we can and affect as many people as we can.”
While several individual players such as Jonathan Toews, Henrik Lundqvist, and Carey Price have donated $100,000 each, this is a team donation. The Oilers joined the Winnipeg Jets in donating $100,000 as a team and the Tampa Bay Lightning Players pledged 500,000 meals toward an organization titled ‘Feeding Tampa Bay.’
Individual players within the teams have made their own personal donations including Oilers Darnell Nurse and William Lagesson who have made theirs known.
“There’s lots of different stuff going on,” said McDavid who is heavily involved with the JumpStart program. “It’s important that we’re all doing our part and giving back,” he said.
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