We’ve talked about the efforts being made by teams and players in the NHL to both raise money and awareness for Hockey Fights Cancer. Teams are doing great things to raise money to give to charity while some players are donning pink gear to show their support to the cause. We’ve seen Rick DiPietro throw on pink goalie pads to do his part but you don’t usually see an enforcer put anything pink on themselves ever. That’s where Toronto Maple Leafs fighter Colton Orr is doing things a little bit differently.
Orr is stepping things up in a more noticeable way to show his support for Hockey Fights Cancer by wearing pink skates in tonight’s game against the New York Rangers and he’s got a special reason for doing so.Colton Orr recently put in a request with equipment manufacturer Reebok to see what they could come up with for the league’s Hockey Fights Cancer month. The company delivered hand-painted pink skates for the Toronto forward to wear in Saturday night’s game against the New York Rangers.
Orr is believed to be the first hockey player to wear pink skates and he did so in memory of Todd Davison, a former teammate with the WHL’s Regina Pats who died in 2006 after fighting a rare form of cancer.
“I had a teammate and friend, he was 18 and he passed away from synovial sarcoma,” Orr said Saturday morning. “Just being involved in any kind of cancer awareness is a privilege and an honour for me to help out any way I can.”You see the way Colton Orr plays on the ice and you sometimes assume that a guy that plays as hard as he does and sometimes as ferocious as he’s capable and you don’t think he’s got a big heart in there, but Orr is proving otherwise. There’s never anything wrong with anyone doing something for charity, and to have a guy that’s better known for punching someone’s lights out serving notice by lacing up pink skates... Well, who is really going to say anything to him about that?