THUNDER BAY – Five women’s soccer teams took to the pitch on Saturday night to raise money for a good cause.
A pair of squads from the Lakehead Thunderwolves club program welcomed the Thunder Bay Chill, Superior Rush FC and the Confederation College Thunderhawks to The Hangar for the Lakehead Women’s Championship Cup.
While bragging rights were on the line, the main purpose of the event was to raise funds for the Faye Peterson House women’s shelter.
“It’s definitely a blessing to be able to fundraise some money for them,” said Thunderwolves team captain Hannah Keesic.
“I actually do outreach work with NorthWind Family Ministries and we sometimes have clients that also stay at Faye Peterson House. They are an amazing organization and they do so much for women.”
As of Monday morning, the tournament had raised $1,480, which surpassed their initial goal of $1,000.
Thunderwolves head coach Anna MacLean said that in addition to lending support to Faye Peterson House, one of the event’s goals was to raise awareness about what the organization does.
“I think it’s a great thing to support and they do a lot of great stuff for the community,” MacLean said.
“We want to help them so that they continue to do everything that they are doing here in Thunder Bay.”
Saturday’s tournament also marked the first time the Thunderwolves club team have hosted a multi-team competition outside of their annual Christmas event.
The squad regularly plays on Monday nights at the Thunder Bay Tournament Centre in local league play and has also ventured down to southern Ontario for matches.
“We’re loving the competition,” Keesic said. “It’s very intense and we love that we can get all of these women’s soccer teams to come together and have a good time.”
MacLean said that the program would like to continue to grow the event and help other causes in the future.
“We don’t host a lot of tournaments in Thunder Bay so I think it’s great to create that environment to promote women’s soccer,” MacLean added.
“We’ll look back at how things went this weekend and we’ll see what we can improve upon for next time.”
Donations for Faye Peterson House are still being accepted on the event’s GoFundMe page.
