The Thurgood Marshall College Fund supports historically black colleges and universities, medical schools and law schools.
Since the first Congressional Hockey Challenge in 2009, the event has raised $850,000 for those organizations.
Commissioner Bettman said the importance of the Congressional Hockey Caucus is that "it gives a recognition and profile for the game as something that's important in communities and important in people's lives and our teams, our league, our players, USA Hockey all work together to do initiatives in the communities that make a difference in people's lives."
Ogrean detailed how participation in hockey has grown at all age levels among males and females and among disabled participants. That includes sled hockey, standing amputee hockey, deaf and hard of hearing hockey, special hockey, blind hockey and the USA Warriors program.
"We are about as completely vertical an organization as there is, from young people to players over 60 years old," Ogrean said. "Our support of growing female hockey, especially since its first appearance in the Winter Olympics [in 1998], our embrace of disabled hockey and sled hockey and all the disabled disciplines, I think it's continuing to broaden the whole embrace of hockey. That's what I'm most proud of, that we really are trying to make it accessible to everyone."