Mullets making money for charity at Hockey Day Minnesota 2022
Minnesota State University, Mankato students are sporting mullets for more than just the look – they’re styling them to support charity. For Hockey Day Minnesota this year, one of the events included a mullet contest.
The new competition started in November and came about because of Hockey Day. Maureen Gustafson from Mankato Area Foundation worked to help plan this event.
“The game on the very last day of Hockey Day is played between the Minneapolis Mullets and the Steel County Blades, so we thought we’d capitalize on the mullet name and do a promo,” shared Gustafson. “We selected people that have a hockey affiliation or have been longtime hockey fans.”
All proceeds from the event go to the Jonathan Zierdt Cancer Fund. Established back in 2017, the fund started when Jonathan Zierdt, a well-known community member, was diagnosed with cancer. The funds from the mullet competition will be donated to care boxes that will be given to patients, a request that Zierdt had.
“When [Zierdt] was diagnosed, people rallied around him. They wanted to do something,” said Gustafson. “Through his experience, he wanted to make the cancer journey as respectful and dignified as possible, so he had this idea that at diagnosis, cancer patients would receive this box.”
Cancer patients receive well-packaged boxes that are full of useful items. The contents of the boxes that patients will receive include a cancer-fighting cookbook, a blanket, a journal and a gift card to cover gas or prescription costs. Over 6,000 boxes are given to patients each year. The impact of the boxes gives a sense of hope and encouragement to the patients.
“Whenever a patient is diagnosed with cancer, the nurse or doctor presents them with the gift box,” said Gustafson. We just get tons of beautiful notes and letters from these patients on how wonderful it felt at this really low time in their life to see that people cared about them and that people were thinking about them.”
To support the charity, all people have to do is vote for their favorite mullet. The voting link can be found on the Hockey Day Mankato website.
“On the [Hockey Day] page there is a section for events and there’s a link on there for all of the mullet growers,” shared Gustafson. “Each participant has a GoFundMe page and people can vote for them. It’s a dollar a vote.”
During the game on Sunday, the winner will be announced. A short video will be played showing the mullet growing journey of each of the participants. Overall, Gustafson is incredibly pleased with the kindness of those competing.
“It’s just been fun to see how generous they’ve been, and how they’ve been such good sports for us,” said Gustafson.