Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen numerous videos pop up with NHL players dousing themselves in ice water to combat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Obviously, dumping ice water on your head doesn’t beat the disease, but it does get people thinking about the disease and the challenge encourages people to donate toward fighting it. According to the New York Daily News, the ice bucket challenge has helped raise tens of thousands of dollars toward fighting Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The rules are pretty simple: Either donate $100 to fight ALS or dump a bucket of ice water on your head. Then you must call out people to do the same. They have 24 hours to complete the challenge, or they must donate the $100.
A lot of big-name NHL stars have done the challenge including Sidney Crosby, Steven Stamkos, Tuukka Rask and Mike Smith.
Of course, there are those who still did the ice bucket challenge and also chose to donate, which former NHLer Bill Guerin did in his ice bucket challenge.
However, one of the most creative ice bucket challenges has to go to the current NHL free agent Paul Bissonnette. Bissonnette upped the ante when he used glacier water for the ice bucket challenge, dressed in a speedo and had a helicopter dump the water on top of him.
Not to be outdone, Plymouth Whalers defenseman Mitch Jones’ ice bucket challenge incorporated a Zamboni.
It’s not uncommon for celebrities or other high-profile individuals to use social media to get the word out on diseases or causes. However, the ice bucket challenge presents it in a unique way. People would rather watch a short 30-second video than see a bunch of hashtags and tweets.
The ice bucket challenge alone won’t help fight ALS, but there’s no denying the attention it has brought toward fighting it.
Every single one of these guys should be donating at least $100.
Agreed, and I’m sure they are being encouraged to do so if not more. A couple thousand is something they could all easily afford.