The student organized charity basketball game dubbed “The Tri-Colour Classic” was hosted at Slush Puppie Place on Thursday night, marking the 4th straight year of the event that is now approaching $700,000 as a cumulative total raised and donated to cancer research.
The game, while a separate event altogether, continues in the spirit of the Commerce-Engineering rivalry at Queen’s that has been at the center of events like the Cure Cancer Classic hockey game, with the Tri-Colour Classic instead taking the rivalry and fundraising efforts to the hardwood.
The Engineering team won on Thursday night 63-60 after the Commerce team made it close late, and with the victory Engineering has now won 3 of the 4 matchups held so far.
After raising $51,000 in its first year, fine tuning by organizers and experimenting with the date the event is held has helped them to fairly steadily increase the amount raised on a yearly basis, with last year’s total of $250,000 setting the bar.
This year saw a bit of a dip in raising $200,000 total, but the event’s founder Hunter MacKinnon says he and other organizers are incredibly happy with how the event has grown over the year, and see potential for it to continue doing so.
The last couple games have sold tickets to Slush Puppie Place at or near capacity, so there is a bit of a ceiling being reached in terms of fundraising totals.
MacKinnon says they’re trying to find ways to garner larger donations, or add fundraising options in the form of new events on campus.
“That’s what we’re continuously looking for… Where can we add in an event where we can add more positive change in terms of raising funds,” MacKinnon said.
“And then in terms of the game aspects, it’s fine tuning… it’s tying in more and more with the Queen’s community, and then trying to branch out to the Kingston community would be the next steps.”
In the past two years, the Tri-Colour Classic team has also organized a March Madness tournament, which has a more recreational focus ass opposed to the game being more spectator geared.
The first three years of fundraising proceeds were donated to research on childhood cancer by Dr. Donald Mabbott The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, with this most recent year’s funds being directed to the work of Dr. Guy Sauvageau, whose research is looking at killing cancer cells by preventing their use of oxygen and sugar.
