Last Saturday night we saw one of the best Battles of Alberta that we have seen in a very long time. Calgary ended up winning the game 4-3, but the major story line that came out of the game is a new rivalry between Matthew Tkachuk and Zack Kassian.
Tkachuk had delivered a couple of questionable hits on Kassian during the game, which led to Kassian eventually losing his cool. Kassian delivered quite the beating on Tkachuk, who was unwilling to drop the gloves, Kassian slammed Tkachuk on the ice twice and punched him multiple times before the officials broke it up. On Monday it was announced that Kassian had been suspended two games for the altercation.
As fun as the Battle of Alberta is for hockey fans, it is also doing a lot of good for the community as well.
Following Saturday night's events, Flames fans started a fundraising campaign to place billboards with Tkachuk's face plastered on them across Edmonton. A local radio station stepped into say that they would handle the billboards and the money raised would go towards ALS research. The campaign surpassed it's goal of $2500 in less than 24 hours and they currently sit at $4048.
Oilers fans responded with a little charity work of their own. A twitter user by the name @SamInYeg decided that she would donate money to a charity in Calgary in Zack Kassian's name and encouraged others to do the same. She chose to donate money to the charity Brown Bagging For Calgary's Kids "so that kids can get a proper meal and grow up to be tougher than Tkachuk" is what she wrote in her tweet about the donation.
@SamInYeg posted an update that Brown Bagging had received 169 donations in less than 24 hours. That totaled $6520.88 and produced over 3000 lunches.
W. Brett Wilson from Dragon's Den also pledged to match donations up to that number, as well as an extra $5000 to an Edmonton shelter of @SamInYeg's choosing.
In the most recent update, over $22,000 has been raised by Oiler fans.
Two hockey communities have come together to raise over $30,000 for charity all in a couple of days, and it's all because Tkachuk decided that he wanted to get on Kassian's bad side last Saturday night.
The Flames will travel to Edmonton on Jan. 29 and they will meet each other again right away on Feb. 1 in Calgary.
Source: CBC
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