Batavia City Schools Superintendent Jason Smith drops the puck between Pete Corbelli(left)a member or the first Batavia Varsity hockey team and PJ Maier(right) a member of the Foundation.
The first Batavia City School District Foundation Blue vs. White charity hockey game went to overtime before a winner could be crowned at the David McCarthy Memorial Ice Arena on Sunday evening.
The White team broke a 6-6 tie to win it in overtime, 8-6.
Alumni members of the Batavia and Notre Dame Hockey programs, City School District faculty and staff along with several members of City Fire and the local business community made up the two teams.
Batavia Middle School Principal, Nathan Korzelius (right) coached the White Team and John Kirkwood (left) headed up the Blue Team, both were high school coaches at one time.
A moment of silence was held before the game for a Batavia Alumni goalie, JT Turnbull, who was injured in a skiing accident at the end of January. A GoFundMe page has been set up for medical expenses, The fundraising effort started two days ago is just under $4,000 from their goal of $50,000. Here is the link to donate Fundraiser by Friends of JT : Support JT’s Journey to recovery (gofundme.com)
“I was talking to Marc Witt, General Manager with CAN-USA Sports/Batavia Muckdogs, about different ideas and this one just came to the front. It’s something fun to do, especially in the winter months, we’re all locked indoors, a great reason to get out on a February Sunday instead of staying a home,” says Zachary Korzelius, President of the Batavia City School District Foundation.
Tickets were $10, with proceeds benefiting the Batavia City School District Foundation. The Foundation helps develop, procure and manage resources, contributions, and educational funding that is used to directly support the City of Batavia School District, its student population, programming, property development and student scholarship funding.
The Geico Gecko, Dewey/Batavia Muckdogs mascot and the Batavia Blue Devil made it out to the rink for the game.
Several local businesses also helped sponsor the game.
“A lot of people don’t understand, not only do we do scholarships, but we also facilitate a lot of things for the school as well in terms of finding grants for students and staff. We also help move money towards Community Schools, which has the Community Closet, and we sponsor the Batavia Concert Band and Mr. Batavia every year. There’s a lot of different things that we do.”
Two bikes were also given away after the game. The bikes were donated by Alice Ann Benedict, a City School District Board member.
Anyone wishing to donate to the Foundation can find more information here BCSD Foundation | Batavia City School District (bataviacsd.org)
