GDI USA is proud to partner with Shutouts for Seizures (SoS) and the CURE foundation. SoS Founder Amelia Murray is one of our students and young coaches. At select camps this past summer, we shared initial information about the program with the promise of more info to follow. To kick off our 2016/2017 season and into our 2017 summer programs, we want to encourage you to partner with Amelia. Learn more below and get started right away. Let’s make the pledge and give every game everything you’ve got because a shutout is much more than a shutout: a shutout is one step closer to finding a cure! Contact Amelia directly for questions, her info is below.
Dear GDI USA family,
My name is Amelia Murray – I am a Chicago Young Americans AAA Girls hockey alumni, and I am currently a freshman goalie in the Women’s Division I Hockey Team at Union College as well. #GoDutch! I am writing to you about a fundraising initiative, called Shutouts for Seizures, my dad & I came up with 4 years ago after a close family member of mine was diagnosed with epilepsy. My hope is to get as many people as possible to support Shutouts for Seizures and to implement the initiative at your rinks with your teams!
Let me first start off by explaining what seizures and epilepsy are: A seizure is when the normal pattern of electrical charges in one’s brain is interrupted by sudden and unusually intense bursts of electrical energy which may cause strange sensations, emotions, behaviors or convulsions, muscle spasms, and loss of consciousness. Epilepsy is when a person has two or more seizures which have not been provoked by specific events such as trauma, infection, fever, or chemical change. Shutouts for Seizures (SoS) is a fundraising initiative that occurs all hockey season long in efforts to raise seizure and epilepsy awareness alongside donations for research in hopes of one day finding a cure.
How it works:
At the beginning of the season, (now is the time, ladies and gentleman!) you will ask your hockey team’s families and friends if they would like to pledge to donate a certain denomination of money for SoS. Every time your team earns a shutout, the donations are earned as well. A shutout is an awesome goalie accomplishment (this is coming from a goalie herself), but we all know a shutout is not earned by only the goalie: all of the shot-blocking, covering your player, making a great save, tips, or just being a great teammate contribute to getting that big 0 up on the scoreboard. A shutout is determined by the whole team working as one cohesive unit. This is why SoS promotes a TEAM first – all in attitude in hockey to celebrate not only a goalie accomplishment but a team accomplishment as well. (But feel free to give your goalie a pat on the back, too! )
A donation to SoS can be as small or as big as you would like – any little bit goes a long way, and we appreciate all of it. The donations are not collected on a game-basis but instead are collected at two different points in the season (halfway – end of December, and at the end – end of March/beginning of April). All donations go to Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE) that is based in Chicago and is solely dedicated to epilepsy and seizure research.
Over my four years playing with the Chicago Young Americans (CYA) girls program, with what started out as being as little as a dollar per shutout, Shutouts for Seizures has now raised an excess of $30,000 in just over four years – all donated by members of the CYA family to help find a cure. I would like to give a big thank you to all of CYA for their utmost generosity and kindness with Shutouts for Seizures and thank you for being a part of my family.
This year, we are taking Shutouts for Seizures to the collegiate level at Union College’s Division I hockey program in Schenectady, New York with plans of expanding to numerous other colleges across the country. Along with our collegiate plans, this is the first year that CYA will have all four of their girls’ teams participating in SoS, and Goaltender Development Institute (GDI) coaches Ryan Honick and Sanya Sandahl hope to reach their 3,000+ goalies (and their teams) nationwide with the SoS initiative at the youth hockey level.
So, my challenge to all of you is this: make the pledge and give every game everything you’ve got because a shutout is much more than a shutout: a shutout is one step closer to finding a cure.
To register your team (under your goalie’s name) at SoS, please click here.
For more information on epilepsy, seizures, and the CURE Foundation, please click here.
To view my SoS page with Union College (which is still under construction) please click here.
Thank you so much for your time and I cannot wait to make you a part of the SoS Family!!
Amelia Murray
(815)-347-0099