Buffalo hockey event could set record, help raise millions

BUFFALO -- If all goes according to plan, early Monday morning 40 hockey players here will have made history, helped raise millions of dollars for cancer research and made Mike Lesakowski's vision from eight years ago a reality.
The 11 Day Power Play, which began June 22, is scheduled to end Monday at HarborCenter, the Buffalo Sabres practice facility, after some 250 hours of hockey, with a goal of setting the world record for the longest consecutively played hockey game.

Lesakowski, a 45-year-old Buffalo resident, came up with the idea of staging a game to raise funds in 2009 when his wife, Amy, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent surgery and chemotherapy, and recovered, at Roswell Park Cancer Institute here.
"I had the idea of doing a hockey charity game, so I wanted to see what the longest one ever was," Mike Lesakowski said. "So I look it up and, lo and behold, it was 240 hours or whatever it was (in 2009); I can't exactly remember. So I got a bunch of guys together and we talked about logistics and all that, but we never took it to that next level to make it real. … So we kind of shelved it."
It was hard to put the game together back then because the Lesakowskis had three young children at the time (Alyssa is now 19, Julia 14 and Liam 13), and there was no facility in the area capable of hosting a game that would take that long.
Then Mike's mother, Evelyn, was diagnosed with cancer three years ago. She died in May 2016 at age 62.

"When my mother was going through her battle, it became apparent: We knew my mom was going to pass away," Lesakowski said. "And at that point I really decided I wanted to do this game because things were better, in terms of logistics. We could manage our time better; there was this wonderful place (HarborCenter, which opened in 2014), so we decided we were going to do this once my mom was getting toward the end of her life. So when she passed, we said we're doing it.
"We met with the folks here, we met with the folks at Roswell, we met with the Buffalo Sabres, and we started talking to people in the community and getting our committee together and everybody was gung-ho; everybody wanted to do it."
After months of planning, the 11 Day Power Play came to fruition. The idea was to raise $1 million for Roswell Park's cancer research while breaking the record for longest game. The record is 250 hours, 3 minutes, 20 seconds, set by Dr. Brent Saik and friends in Alberta, Canada. That game, which also raised money for cancer research, was played outdoors in Strathcona County, Alberta, near Edmonton, from Feb. 6-16, 2015, and included former Edmonton Oilers defenseman Janne Niinimaa.
The Sabres donated use of HarborCenter for this game, as well as use of Impact Sports Performance equipment and access to trainers to help the players prepare for the grueling event.

Sabres play-by-play announcer Rick Jeanneret, who had throat cancer in 2014, even called the first hour of the game over the arena PA system along with his usual broadcast partner, former Buffalo forward Rob Ray.
Each of the 40 players had the goal of raising $10,000 leading up to the game. Before the first shift even took place, it was announced the target goal of $1 million for the event had been met.
"It was bittersweet," said Amy Lesakowski, 43. "We announced we met our goal and we worried if people would keep donating. But the money we're raising is seed money, and that's really important for people to understand, that that seed money is used by the hospital to leverage for larger grants. So our $1 million could potentially be $13 million. It's important to keep fundraising."
Finding 40 players to take part in a hockey game that lasts into a 12th day may sound difficult, but the number of lives cancer has affected made it feasible. The players have a wide range of skill levels; some have learned how to play in the past year or two, and some have played junior or college hockey.

"It means friendship, it means families, it means community, it means passion, love," said David Travers, 47, of Buffalo, one of the players participating. "It's a group of individuals who end up on the ice together, but that is a fraction of who is involved.
"The 40 men represent the game that is going on, but around that, the families of those 40 men and the friends of those 40 men, the people that have been affected by cancer … there's nobody that I know that hasn't gone through life in one way or another being affected by cancer and it's awful."
Fundraising aside, those involved have another motivation: setting a world record for the longest game. They've gotten financial and promotional support for the event from former Sabres players Michael Peca and Andrew Peters. Peca was scheduled to be one of the 40 players but wasn't medically cleared to play. The players have also received encouragement from those who set the current record in Alberta two years ago.
"The [current record-holders] have been great, they've been sending me texts all week," Mike Lesakowski said. "They've been saying, 'We're really proud of you guys.' Janne Niinimaa … he sent us some nice Twitter messages. We printed out all the messages to let the guys know that folks at home with the current record are pulling for you guys. That was pretty cool."