Forty female hockey players beat the Guinness World Record Monday for playing the longest hockey game in the world, but said the biggest reward was raising awareness and more than $125,000 for cystic fibrosis.
The women, led by Richmond car sales Val Skelly, battled blisters, swollen knees, boot bang and even a concussion, to play for 10 days for a total of 243 hours and five minutes.
Their marathon game wrapped at 11:05 a.m. Monday amid cheers, tears, hugs and dozens of red roses tossed on the Burnaby 8Rinks ice from supportive fans.
While nearly 2,500 goals were scored, 290 of them from Courtney's Bree Healey, the players insisted it wasn't about the score.
"It's a miracle of the human spirit," said Skelly, who works at Richport Ford Lincoln and who spearheaded the event, called Long Game 4 CF.
"Now we all know we can do anything we put our minds to. I'll never forget this moment, thank you."
The first few days of the event was tough for Skelly, who said she "woke up in the morning crying my eyes out and thinking 'What did I get us into?'"
But she was compelled to push forward, motivated by the promise she made to Lucia Tavano, whom she befriended while working for Cystic Fibrosis Canada in its Edmonton office, that she would do something "huge" for the cystic fibrosis cause. Tavano died at age 27.
The marathon hockey match was played in the name of Eva Markvoort of New Westminster, who was chosen as the spokeswoman for the fundraising campaign but died a few months later at age 25.
