{"id":35819,"date":"2021-04-29T11:41:07","date_gmt":"2021-04-29T10:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shefnews.co.uk\/?p=35819"},"modified":"2021-04-29T11:41:07","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T10:41:07","slug":"steelkings-mascot-takes-on-virtual-end-to-end-fundraising-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shefnews.co.uk\/index.php\/2021\/04\/29\/steelkings-mascot-takes-on-virtual-end-to-end-fundraising-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelkings mascot takes on virtual \u2018End to End\u2019 fundraising challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

A local Para Ice Hockey club are undertaking a mammoth sponsored fitness challenge to raise money for new equipment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sheffield Steelkings\u2019 mascot, Rusty, is virtually cycling a 1,500 kilometre route between Land\u2019s End and John O\u2019Groats from the relative comfort of an exercise bike at home.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

The Sheffield Steelkings squad<\/p><\/div>\n

The club\u2019s chairman and coach Jake Oakley said that although the club\u2019s growth has been fantastic, it has potential knock-on effects which could prevent new players participating.<\/span><\/p>\n

Oakley said: \u201cWith all these players coming in, equipment becomes sparse.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s this beautiful but never-ending headache of \u2018how do we get more people playing a loving the sport and still keep everybody engaged and on the ice?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The club was founded in 2014 as part of an expansion programme led by Ice Sheffield and they <\/span>welcome both able-bodied and disabled players to compete against teams across the UK.<\/span><\/p>\n

Oakley said: \u201cWe\u2019re now splitting off into two teams, a senior team and a development team to allow more people to play.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

A map of Rusty’s mammoth route<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what your background is, once you\u2019re on the ice you\u2019re part of the Steelkings family and the club.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Oakley, who grew up watching the Sheffield Steelers, became involved with the club after health issues stopped him from being able to play other sports.<\/span><\/p>\n

Oakley said: \u201cI got knocked off my motorbike in 2005 and it shot my knees so there\u2019s a lot of sports that aren\u2019t accessible to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough I don\u2019t class as being disabled, my knees are disabling and it was a good excuse to play a bit of the sport I love.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The club\u2019s goal is to raise \u00a31,000 from the fundraiser which will cover the cost of a new sledge for a future player.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whilst Oakley acknowledges the cost of playing sport is particularly significant in para ice hockey, he wants to remove that barrier for all players.<\/span><\/p>\n

Oakley said: \u201cWhen I took over the chairman role I wanted to try and make the sport as accessible as we could for people.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate that people often don\u2019t have a lot of money; I didn\u2019t want that to be the reason why we couldn\u2019t get somebody on the ice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

If you would like to donate to the fundraiser visit the <\/span>Steelkings\u2019 GoFundMe page here.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The team are hoping to raise money to pay for a new sledge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[96,194,517,38,197,518,40],"class_list":["post-35819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","tag-fundraiser","tag-ice-hockey","tag-para-ice-hockey","tag-sheffield","tag-sheffield-steelers","tag-sheffield-steelkings","tag-sport"],"yoast_head":"\nSteelkings mascot takes on virtual \u2018End to End\u2019 fundraising challenge - ShefNews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/shefnews.co.uk\/index.php\/2021\/04\/29\/steelkings-mascot-takes-on-virtual-end-to-end-fundraising-challenge\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Steelkings mascot takes on virtual \u2018End to End\u2019 fundraising challenge - 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