Home / Charity / Here’s Some of What You Missed If You Missed RMNB Party 7: #PARTYZORD

Here’s Some of What You Missed If You Missed RMNB Party 7: #PARTYZORD

By Nathan Burchfiel

 1 Comment

September 7, 2014 12:44 pm

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The Brouwers with all three Brouwer Rangers. (Photo: Sheena D.)

9/8 Update: With post-event bake sale money and online donations included, the total raised actually comes to $2,800!

Thanks to everyone who braved the wicked traffic to come out to PARTYZORD: The Brouwer Rangers/RMNB ‘Legends of Ice Dancing’ Tour de Pouwer (to Support Fort Dupont Ice Arena)™ on Saturday morning. In just two short hours, we raised more than $2,100 for Friends of Fort Dupont Ice Arena! Can you believe it?!

That includes money contributed through the raffle, bake sale and silent auction, and surpasses the total donation we made along with the Brouwers last year! Even better is that the real total is probably even higher than that, thanks to folks who couldn’t make it out to the party but still donated online. (If you’d like to do that now, head over to FDIA’s donation page.)

We think Emily put it best:

We’re so grateful to everyone who made it out to Fort Dupont and made #PARTYZORD such a fun and successful event. For those of you who weren’t able to join us (or for those who were but want to relive the fun!), here’s a brief recap of some of the days events.

We arrived about 9:30 am, and FDIA director of fundraising Ron Slomski was waiting for us with a great sign:

We’ll let Peter take it from here with his video diary:

One of our top priorities for the day was to finally close the book on the Ian Oland Apology Tour by having Brouwer make a final gesture of good will in signing Ian’s Brouwer Ranger helmet. Here’s Ian showing it off:

ENHANCE!

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Plus, we were able to meet a lot of great folks and have a bit of fun skating on Fort Dupont’s really great ice sheet.


By the way, if you want the whole #PARTYZORD playlist, click here.

Everyone knew Troy and Carmen Brouwer were coming, but Caps/Bears defenseman Connor Carrick surprised everyone by coming by after his morning training session at Kettler. Well, he surprised everyone Ian hadn’t already told – so like 4 people. Fortunately, no one had eaten the Capscake featuring Connor, so he took a picture with it!

In fact, the whole bake sale area was a big hit, with cleverly named items (our personal favorites were the Brouwer Pouwer Bars!) and Capscakes featuring classic RMNB artwork like Rachel’s “Deadguin” and Rockford IceHogs-era Troy Brouwer:

Caps arena announcer Wes Johnson even stopped by to offer up a raffle prize (Sheena a.k.a. @CAPLDY won a personalized voicemail greeting to be recorded by Wes!) and introduce the final event of the day: Ian’s Ice Bucket Challenge at center ice.

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Troy and Connor were very gracious with their time, chatting with fans, signing autographs, and posing for a bunch of photos:

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And yes, there were even a few reverse Brouwer Bombs:

Thanks to the generosity of local businesses and fellow fans, lots of people walked away with some great swag, too. Jenn even managed to get Brouwer to sign her Brouwbblehead’s jersey!

The Puck Buddys, who walked away with a pair of Brouwer Pouwer rally towels and the Alan May signed glove, shared this photo of the raffle proceedings:

You’ll notice on the right side of the picture a pile of 10 Brouwbbleheads that Troy and Carmen donated. Here’s a fun factoid. Carmen is (inexplicably) not a fan of the mustache – so much so that she ordered a special run of Brouwbbleheads without the ‘stache! This limited edition item is something that we must now have.

One of the best things about these parties are stories like this one, from reader Drew:

My daughter had a rough day yesterday and was upset that I had started a new job that has me working Saturdays, which was our usual day together.  I told her about Party Zord and she was excited about going.  I asked my Mom if she could take her as I would be working…

They ran into traffic and road closures, and my Mom was all for giving up and just going home, but she found faith in herself and my daughter used the map and gave her directions.  At last they made it, and since they had found it through all the troubles, they were already pleased.  They got inside and found the staff at the rink very friendly and helpful.  They bought raffle tickets.  A cupcake was consumed.  Skating ensued!  They introduced themselves to Troy, and then skated again.  Once a line formed for autographs they joined that.  They bid at the silent raffle.  And skated some more.  They brought home some Brouwer Ranger towels, which they were thrilled to have won (and generously gave one to me since I missed it).  And they hurried back onto the ice to see Ian’s Ice Bucket challenge.  Afterwords as they were getting ready to go, my daughter had a moment to herself and used it to talk to Ian, who gave her a Connor Carrick picture ( and oh yeah, they found him at some point too, I just lost track of when, they were both talking at once!).

Autumn, my daughter, had a great time and enjoyed every moment of it.

My Mom, who has been to practices at Kettler, continued to be impressed by how nice and amazing hockey players are.  And, she couldn’t stop telling me how nice everyone who was there working and helping out.  She told me that it was the highlight of her year.

Thanks for sharing your story, Drew. It was the highlight of our year too – at least until the season starts!

Feel free to post your photos and your favorite moments from #PARTYZORD in the comments!

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