When I was looking for some blogs to subscribe to a few days, I found a hockey related blog: On Frozen Blog. On the blog, there was a post entitled “Should Hockey Players Wear Pink — Ever?“. You can read the original post here. The post discusses that the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League will be wearing pink jerseys for this upcoming month for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Also, there have been a few different incidents where the entire ice surface was painted pink to raise awareness for breast cancer.
I’m quite fine with fundraising through professional sports for charities. However I was quite disturbed when I read this quote from the blog:
“Everyone is going pink for October, but that doesn’t necessarily mean money is being raised for cancer research. After all, it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, not Research Month. That means that anyone can put a cute ribbon on their products or even produce specialty pink products without actually donating anything. While this isn’t against the law or anything, many shoppers are being fooled into thinking that their purchase makes a difference.”
This quote originally came from an article entitled “When Breast Cancer Pink is a Scam“. This particular article states that many companies are exploiting the pink ribbon for marketing purposes. Am I the only one sickened by this? The fact that businesses are using fake cancer awareness to turn a larger profit. They know people are more likely to buy products where some of the proceeds go towards a good cause. I can’t believe that companies are trying to fool people into buying their products knowing this.
I know that hockey teams or organizations that run charity nights aren’t trying to pull a fast one on us. However much they say will be donated to these charities will likely be donated. However, some of it will probably get lost somewhere along the way. I think if you’re wanting to contribute to these charities, you should make a donation directly to them.
Also, on a side note, it was just announced that Team Canada will be wearing green jerseys at the World Juniors in Saskatchewan. Scott Smith, chief operating officer of Hockey Canada, said “Green is the colour … hockey is the game.” Smart move on Hockey Canada’s part. The green and white Riders make more money in merchandise than the rest of the CFL combined. And, I heard this from a friend, so correct me if I’m wrong, but third most in all sports in Canada, just behind the Canadiens and Leafs. I like it, but I bet all of Canada outside of Saskatchewan will hate it.
I think this is quite interesting. Why would people be upset that money isn’t raised for breast cancer research at every sight of pink? Obviously, pink is just promoting the idea of raising money for breast cancer research. And just because money isn’t being raised everytime pink is seen doesn’t mean that money isn’t being raised at all. This is so odd that people are getting upset about this.
I don’t think that it’s so much that people are upset that money isn’t being raised, they are upset that they are getting tricked into thinking that their money is going towards a good cause. Personally, if I found out that a donation I thought I had made really didn’t go anywhere, I wouldn’t be too happy and quite disappointed.