PINK OUT! BROUGHT AWARENESS TO BREAST CANCER AND WHALERS

Team plans to make it an annual event after success, exposure, and fun in first try

Plymouth Whalers Director of Sales and Marketing Denise Ronayne likes to call small successes “drops in a bucket" – a bucket she fully intends to fill one goal, one fan and one game at a time.  

The Whalers first-ever Pink Out! For Cancer Awareness – held October 17 when Plymouth hosted the Niagara IceDogs – generated a certain amount of buzz that the Whalers hope will become a flood in the coming years.

The Whalers’ Pink Out! effort was covered in media outlets that don’t normally mention the Ontario Hockey League:

(Above) Patrick Lee and Chris Terry check out their new pink hair at Vanity Salon. (Below) AJ Jenks was decked out with pink laces, a pink stick, pink tape, a pink ribbon decal on his helmet, and pink hair during the game.

The Plymouth Whalers Plan to Frighten Breast Cancer Into Submission, screamed the headline in Deadspin.com.

When it comes to Breast Cancer Awareness Week, the Plymouth Whalers have set the bar impossibly high,” said Deadspin.com. “Where can you go after this move, in which every member of the Ontario Hockey League team on Tuesday dyed their hair pink? There's just nothing left to dye after this (don't go there, bro).

Detroit News columnist Neal Rubin wrote about the Whalers for the second time in six months, examining the motivation of the Whalers players, who went to Vanity Salon in Plymouth to participate in a team dyeing session:

"It'll be pretty cool," AJ Jenks says. "Everybody's going to be looking pretty goofy together."

 

That last word is the most important, even if the one before it jumps out. Denise Ronayne, the Whalers' sales and marketing director, suggested to the team's leaders that a few players might want to volunteer. But "if the team's going to do something," says Jenks, an alternate captain, "everybody's going to be a part of it."

Rubin also mentioned the Whalers effort in his Detroit News blog:

The Plymouth Whalers of the Ontario Hockey League who are holding their first Pink Out! Cancer Awareness Night at Compuware Arena Friday are still mostly teenagers. But even when the best of them become big leaguers in the NHL odds are they'll be genuine and approachable.

 

The reasons for that are discussed frequently by sportswriters. Depending on the writer you'll hear a case for either NFL or NBA players as runners-up. The worst of the Big Four by just about the same unanimous acclaim that hockey players rank as the best are baseball players.

 

Getting back to hockey the theory is that they've been less pampered their entire sporting lives than stars in other sports. As elementary schoolers they're on the ice at 6 a.m. As teens they're living with host families and taking 10-hour bus trips to Moose Jaw.

 

That'll humanize you. And then there's this: For all the Europeans in pro hockey – heck even the Whalers have two Czechs -- it's still a historically Canadian sport with a Canadian culture. And they're just nicer than us.

The Whalers are covered regularly in the Observer and Eccentric sports section, but made the front page of the O and E on October 16 in a story written by Tony Bruscato:

(Above) The Whalers stuck together to show their support for Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the Pink Out! by dyeing their hair pink as a team. (Below) Mary Beth Bloom, the billet of Leo Jenner and a breast cancer survivor, participated in the ceremonial face-off with Niagara's Drew Schiestel and the Whalers' Jenner. Niagara participated in the Pink Out! as well with pink tape, laces, and the helmet decal.

Plymouth Whalers center Tyler Seguin watched Tuesday evening as some of his teammates strolled through Vanity Salon on Penniman in downtown Plymouth, sporting their newly dyed pink hair.

Sequin, who is living with Mike and Kelly Collins in Plymouth Township while away from his Brampton, Ontario, home to play hockey for the Whalers, said the next week will be interesting.

"All week at school with 7,000 kids looking at you, it's going to be fun," Seguin, a junior at Plymouth-Canton Educational Park, said facetiously. "Hopefully, the girls will like it because it's for a good cause."

The Whalers’ effort was mentioned in Gene Pereira’s OHL notes column in the Barrie, Ontario Examiner on Monday:

Kudos also go out to members of the Plymouth Whalers who dyed their hair pink last Friday for a home game against Niagara in support of breast cancer awareness. Getting teenagers to tuck in their shirts is tough enough, but to ask a group of macho teenage hockey players to sport a pink hairdo is another. Junior hockey players all over, including here in Barrie, take part in many of these kinds of activities to help out the local community.

Even country station 106.7 - The Fox honored the team. Josh Bemis was in studio at the Chad Show representing the whole team as the Kid of the Week for the team raising awareness of breast cancer in the community by dyeing their hair pink.

Josh Bemis gets in the middle of Chad and CJ from the Chad Show on 106.7 - The Fox. Bemis represented the team as the Kid of the Week for their contributions during the Pink Out!

Look for a renewed Pink Out! effort next season.  Perhaps the last word for this year’s Pink Out! belongs to someone who didn’t sign their name, but sent the Whalers front office the following email:

Just wanted you to know, and to pass on to whomever, that it was great fun last night at the pink rink. Lots of smiles on people's faces and it was a great atmosphere for those of us there. And they won! There was probably disappointment that numbers weren't greater but that is really a sign of the times and we just have to appreciate those who do spend time and fun money at the arena. It was a night many of us will remember fondly for a long time thanks to your efforts to make it so. . . pink!

 

Appreciative Fan who can't wait till tonight.

The Whalers would like to thank everyone who participated in this year Pink Out!, including sponsors Vanity Salon, Woody’s Bar B*Q, Bianco Tours and Vanessa’s Flowers.