15. Charity Drive

Professional hockey players are among the luckiest members of a community and of all players, Drew McIntyre knows that very well. There have been many incredible people who have helped him along his journey to where he is now and if it were not for them, he would probably not be living his dream of becoming a star hockey player with aspirations of the SHL right now. From the very first time he laced up a pair of skates, he knew he was getting a very privileged opportunity and was determined to make the most of it every chance he got.

But above all, he knows that not everybody got these sorts of opportunities, in fact the majority of people did not get the opportunities that he had. He made a promise to himself that no matter how big he got, no matter how successful, he would always give back to the local communities who came to support him and gave their time and energy to him when he was on the ice. He made sure to thank and do whatever he could for his loyal following in Scotland who would rent out buses to come watch his games in the British Isles and he carries the same attitude with him to Nevada.

There were a lot of opportunities for him to do these sorts of things in Nevada, even as a junior player. He donated not only part of his salary to the annual Nevada stuffed toy drive, he would invite the organisers of the drive to one of the Nevada games after talking with the managers about having an organised event during a game which became the “Toy Drive Game”. The game and its charitable work were such a success that the Nevada charity and the team were now organising a regular game for this to happen to further integrate more with the Nevada community.

There were a lot of charitable events to get involved with in Nevada, including the food drive which as someone who knew how much he ate, McIntyre absolutely got involved with but if there was one event that McIntyre made a personal point to getting heavily involve with. The Ball Hockey for Kids lessons. We all have to start somewhere in our hockey journey and for many people, it was going to be with ball hockey without skates and thus, this was many kids first opportunity to really learn something about hockey. Drew always made it a point to be available for these hockey clinics and sessions in order to encourage the next generation of hockey players to get involved or even just to encourage kids to be more active and feel better about themselves. People were not born with the muscles and size that McIntyre had but they could work towards them with enough time and hard work.

He also gave his time to go beyond ball hockey and to teach kids beginners ice hockey alongside youth coaches. An upcoming hockey hotbed like Nevada actually had a lot of talent that could change the perception of the state if given enough time to flourish and enough good coaches in order to help it flourish to perfection. In many ways it reminded Drew of what his first coaches saw in him in regards to being a diamond in the rough and needed a lot of time, effort and training in order to become a true diamond. Drew taught the young kids everything he could about the fundamentals of ice hockey, all the basic works. Everything from their first glides on skates, how to increase their speed and how to turn (something that drew admitted to struggling with when he first started) and how to hold a stick during skating. Doing these charitable events really put into context how important the Battleborn were to Nevada and how proud Drew was to be a part of it

652 words - 13 TPE


Milestones - 3 TPE