Breast Cancer Awareness Round

This weekend, please support the TEM Breast Cancer Awareness Round on Saturday 29th August by purchasing a wrist band, sausage or simply a cupcake. All profits from the day will be going towards the McGrath Foundation.

The top Waverley teams will be taking on TEMs so come down to Hawthorn on Saturday to support your club and a great cause. Games times are:

• 2pm Women’s Pennant A TEM vs Waverley
• 15:30 Men’s State League 1 TEM vs Waverley
• 17:00 Men’s Pennant A TEM vs Waverley

Our Story

I started playing hockey when I was 10. First, it was Minkey. We played on grass, at Lords Reserve opposite the Caulfield swimming pool. After I graduated from Minkey I joined the big kids in under 11 mixed, and then it was on to U13 girls. Somewhere around U15s the club left the grass fields and funny shaped clubroom at Lords Reserve and moved to its current home in Hawthorn. At about the same time I started playing senior hockey as well as junior hockey. Then, I was too old for juniors all together. The years had somehow flown past and playing Minkey on grass, in footy boots, on a Saturday morning felt like a million years ago.

Now, I am in my early thirties and still playing hockey at the same club. I am lucky. The club is like home to me. The people are my family. Of course over the years many people have come and gone, moved in and out of this large extended circle, but there are some who have quite simply always been there. They are part of my hockey memories. When I think back to those early years they are there – teaching us how to hold a stick, how to hit, how to trap. It was them who made us line up to collect our sunnyboys and iceypoles after a hard hour of minkey. They are all through my memories. They are on the sidelines reminding us to run, to keep trying, telling us we were doing well. I can see them standing on the field next to me when I played my first game of senior hockey as a teeny, tiny, terrified junior. I can see them at presentation nights, barbeques, social functions, club meetings and carnivals. They are everywhere.

My experience is not unique. If you could somehow look into the hockey memories of most people who have come into contact with TEM over the years you would no doubt see many different hockey experiences. But you would also see this core group of people. You couldn’t not. They are integral to our club – to its past, to its present and to its future.

This year two of the people who figure so prominently in my hockey memories were diagnosed with breast cancer. The first time the news ripped through the club – it was quite literally shocking. This sort of thing just doesn’t happen to us. We are fit. We are healthy – sport and being active is a way of life for us. This can’t be happening, and it certainly can’t be happening to her. She is a life member, a club stalwart. But it was happening. To her, to her family and therefore, to us.

Then, a few weeks ago it happened again. Another diagnosis. Another life member who is part of the very fabric of our club was told that she had breast cancer. Surgery was scheduled immediately. The thoughts and reactions were similar – disbelief, shock, confusion, and mostly, just wishing that it simply wasn’t true.

In both cases our initial reactions of shock and disbelief gave way to the desire to help and support. To do something practical. Send flowers, visit, cook meals, talk, distract, and just generally be there to help. Then, a player in one of our men’s top sides made a suggestion to a player in one of our women’s top sides – why don’t we all buy and use the Gray’s pink stick grips that have been made to raise money for breast cancer research? It was suggested at training two Thursdays ago. Support was unanimous. All felt that the suggestion was brilliant. Not only would we be raising money, but with two men’s teams and two women’s teams all playing with pink stick grips, we would be making a clear statement for all to see. We would be making people stop and think about breast cancer.

Then, two of our women’s players were talking after training that Thursday. Wouldn’t it be great if we also made pink gingerbread women and sold them, along with wrist bands from the McGrath foundation? Proceeds, would again go to the same cause; Breast cancer research and awareness. A third player got in on the conversation – how about t-shirts? In fact, how about we dedicate the round, the final round of the home and away season to breast cancer awareness?

And so it grew. The energy that began to generate was infectious. Everyone had a suggestion, wanted to donate something, wanted to be involved, men and women alike. In just over two weeks the TEM Hockey Club Breast Cancer Awareness Round has been organised. There have been donations of all forms – time, money, effort, products, food, decorations. It has been a phenomenal process. Other clubs have pledged their support of the event and have circulated information about it to all their players. The hockey community has united to support this important and worthy cause.

Our gourmet barbeque this weekend won’t make breast cancer disappear. The fact that there will be pink stick grips, custom made t-shirts, pink hockey merchandise for sale, pink ribbons and wrist bands sold and worn won’t make breast cancer or any other cancer any less painful to those who have suffered or who continue to struggle against it. What our Breast Cancer Awareness Round will do is help raise much needed funds for Breast Cancer research. In addition, it will also raise awareness in our sporting community. It will help send the message that although we are fit, although we are active, although we live generally healthy lives, we need to be aware. We need to perform those health checks regularly and thoroughly because these things can happen to any and all of us. Especially to those who we can’t imagine our lives without, because they have quite simply, always been there.

So please support Breast Cancer Awareness and the McGrath Foundation on Saturday 29th August.