Hockey Team Raises Money For UCPA of Michigan

Above: The Ameriprise Senior Hockey Team has partnered with the United Cerebral Palsy Association to raise money and awareness of cerebral palsy during their annual golf outing.

Highland resident Steve Gordinier and his wife Shannon never thought that their son would be diagnosed with cerebral palsy, but after their 6-year-old son Andrew was diagnosed with the disease, the family’s friends and teammates jumped in to support.

“We have a little boy, Andrew, and at a young age he was just really clumsy and as he got older it was just getting more troublesome to me,” Shannon Gordinier said. “We went to a specialist, looked into it further, ran tests and we pretty much came to a conclusion that it was a mild case of cerebral palsy.”

Gordinier’s hockey team, The Ameriprise Senior Hockey Team, and the United Cerebral Palsy Association (UCPA) teamed up to support families, like the Gordinier family, cope with cerebral palsy and its financial burdens.

Together they launched the first annual United Cerebral Palsy Michigan Golf Outing to raise money to support the UCPA. After Gordinier’s teammates Jason Trzcinski and Matt Brown found out about his son Andrew, they decided to help.

“Every summer, we have come together to play golf and have some fun. Last summer was to be no different until we were notified that one of our teammates had a son who was diagnosed with a mild case of cerebral palsy,” Jason Trzcinski said in an e-mail. “None of us really knew what cerebral palsy was at the time, but what we did know is that we needed to come together for a greater cause than just playing golf. So it began.”

The Ameriprise Senior Hockey Team partnered with the UCPA to host their first golf outing last year. With 100 golfers, the outing raised close to $10,000 to support the UCPA and families dealing with cerebral palsy.

“It was very moving to see how grateful a family was to have their friends come together to recognize a condition that flies under the radar when it comes to charity,” Trzcinski said.

After attending therapy sessions for Andrew, the family wanted to support other families like theirs.

“We were kind of taken back that United Cerebral Palsy didn’t have a lot of fundraiser type stuff, so we really just jumped right on it,” Steve Gordinier said.

In a five-year commitment to Cerebral Palsy of Michigan, the hockey team has scheduled another golf outing June 21 at the Majestic Golf Course in Hartland. The outing will include golf, raffles, door prizes and more.

Now headed into their second year, the team has even bigger plans.

“We made almost $10,000 last year and our goal this year is obviously to raise more money to benefit families that cannot pay for therapy,” Gordinier said. “It’s just going to continue to grow.”

For more information of the United Cerebral Palsy of Michigan Golf Outing or for sponsorship opportunities, visit cpgolf.org.