[Ed. note: Seguin has responded like the charitable heart he is and called out a few other players. The video is attached at the bottom.]
You might have noticed some odd videos floating around Twitter, YouTube and Instagram the past few days as NHL players, for some strange reason, were filling up buckets with ice and water, calling out teammates who should do the same, and then dumping the ice water over their heads.
Well it’s for a great cause – awareness of and money for ALS research – and on Thursday, the first Dallas Stars player got in on the action as Rich Peverley answered the call from one of his former teammates.
For a 43 second video, it’s very good for a few giggles. I personally enjoyed the slightly older kid making sure each and every ice cube was in the bucket and the dumbfounded stare of the gaggle of kids after the dumping of water
Dads do such weird things, right kids?
Peverley called out two of his Stars teammates with active Twitter accounts – Tyler Seguin and Antoine Roussel – as people he wants to see do this challenge. I wholeheartedly agree.
Another Stars player – prospect goalie Jack Campbell – apparently took the challenge a few days ago, but there’s no video that I can find. The photographic evidence is pretty clear, though.
The so-called Ice Bucket Challenge was created by former Boston College baseball player Pete Frates and fellow ALS sufferer Pat Quinn, who threw the challenge out to their networks in late July. The game goes like this – if you are challenged to dump a bucket of ice over your head and fail to do so, you get to donate $100 to the ALS charity of your choice (or you can do both for the win-win aspect, I assume).
So the more people participate, the more awareness is brought to ALS charities and the case of these two men. If things are going to go viral, at least it’s for a great cause.
It really took off among Boston Bruins players in the past few days and had started spreading elsewhere in the NHL as well. Chris Kelly was the Bruins player who called out Peverley.
From a personal perspective, I can tell you first hand how merciless ALS is. A baseball coach in Springfield, Mo., where I once worked, was diagnosed with the condition and died a little more than a year later. Howard Bell was a wonderful man with a lovely family who was taken away far too soon.
I would dump a bucket of ice on my own head in his memory, but we don’t have ice out where I live this time of year. Consider this my virtual splashing.
ETA: Seguin responded within the allotted 24 hours, challenging Jamie Benn, Kevin Connauton and, ahem, “hopefully a shirtless Mike Heika” to respond. Because he knows how to make a summer more fun.
Here’s the video: