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Yale Women’s Ice Hockey White Out for Mandi Dec. 2, 2011

Yale to Host “White Out for Mandi” Hockey Game at Ingalls Rink Friday, Dec. 2

Admission Free; Women’s Hockey Team Dedicates Game to Former Teammate

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The Yale women’s ice hockey team is dedicating its game at Ingalls Rink on Friday, Dec. 2, to Mandi Schwartz ’10 (1978-2011), utilizing the game vs. Princeton as a fundraiser for the Mandi Schwartz Foundation. Senior forward Aleca Hughes, Yale’s captain, started the charity in memory of Mandi, the Yale center who passed away in April after battling cancer for more than two years.

The goal is to pack Ingalls Rink, with everyone wearing white, as a “White Out for Mandi” show of support. No admission will be charged, and donations for the Foundation will be accepted at the door. The team is also lining up pledges from donors based on the attendance total, so that every person who walks through the doors that night will count towards the final donation total.

Special white t-shirts will be sold, and youth hockey teams are encouraged to come wearing white jerseys. The Bulldogs will honor Mandi in a special pre-game ceremony.

The event will also help raise awareness of the need for marrow donors and umbilical cord blood donors. In an effort to save her life last year, Mandi had a stem cell transplant utilizing blood from two anonymous umbilical cord blood donations. Stem cells for patients with life-threatening illnesses like Mandi’s can also come from marrow donors. Yale hosts an annual Mandi Schwartz Marrow Donor Registration Drive every spring to help add potential donors to the Be The Match® Registry. To date, at least six matches for patients in need of transplants have been identified through those efforts. One of those matches was a Yale field hockey player, junior Lexy Adams.

On Dec. 2 the Bulldogs hope to set the record for attendance at a women’s game at Ingalls Rink. The current women’s record is 1,539, set on Nov. 1, 2005, when Team USA played an exhibition game against the ECAC Hockey All-Stars. Last year’s “White Out for Mandi” drew a crowd of 1,066, the most ever for a Yale women’s hockey game. The capacity of Ingalls Rink is 3,500.

 

Sam Rubin
Yale ’95