2022 Champagne Showcase Raises Over $4,500 For Clark Park Coalition
This past Saturday (2.26.22) myself, along with three other Michigan-based business owners were able to host a four-team outdoor hockey tournament at Clark Park in Southwest Detroit. We threw this together in a little under two months and we couldn’t have been happier with the results (well I could have, I’ll explain further down).
We got an absolute beauty of a day, right around 30 degrees and sunny, along with an amazing turnout. The players, their buddies, wives, girlfriends, sidepieces, parents, grand pappi’s, kids, babies, nephews, nieces, locals and everyone in-between showed up and showed out for the first year of this charity skate.
Iris Mortgage gets loose before the opening game
How it came together
It all started when I got a DM from Chris Thomas, owner of Iris Mortgage. He said he had ice at Clark Park from 1-5pm on a Saturday in late February and asked if we should get a tournament going. I made a call to John Herbert (Bowline Financial) and Chris made one to Troy Anderson (Iron Fish Distillery) and the rest was just filling in the gaps.
Those gaps came in the form of Diamond Dogs hot dog stand, Los Dos Amigos Taco Truck, championship trophy sponsor Crossfire Group, MVP trophy sponsors Kailyn Pangrazzi & Grace Mulcahy of @properties, volunteer referees Rob Remelius and Bill Daudlin, scorekeepers/facilitators Katherine Shabo Thomas, Greg Posada, Jim Bretz, and MC/host Zach Schrode, and photography by Infyer Productions.
Diamond Dogs absolutely slinging dogs for the fine folks in attendance
Key player trophy sponsored by @properties
Grit don’t quit
The biggest shoutout goes to everyone who wasn’t playing that came out and supported physically and those who contributed to the Clark Park Coalition financially. With only a couple months to throw this together, the boys did not have much to offer in terms of fund raising opportunities while on site. Our raffle consisted of one prize and one prize only- a 50 inch RCA TV that I had won in another raffle one month prior at Shores Inn. Can’t make that up. But that lone TV raffle prize was able to haul in north of $750 dollars in additional donations. That’s not RCA-TV-hungry-people, that’s people just wanting to give to a good cause. I give that TV a 50/50 chance of even turning on.
Game One: Bowline vs Iris Mortgage
Bowline captain John Herbert takes the ceremonial first puck drop vs Iris Mortgage captain Chris Thomas
The Financial District Game was the inaugural game of the Showcase and it did not disappoint. The game was a defensive struggle which saw Bowline take the early lead, only to have Iris Mortgage tie it up a period later. This game eventually went to 3-on-3 overtime with the game knotted at one. A penalty would make the advantage 4-on-3 in favor of Bowline, where Brad Annas was able to put away the game winner to advance to the finals.
Brad Annas warming up
Game Two: Champagne vs Iron Fish
Iron Fish v Champagne Athletics in game two action
The Booze Bag Game was an absolute slow bleed until the third period. Champagne came out flat. No shake, no pop, and definitely no spray. While I thought we looked fresh in our brand new gold & green sweaters, we played like sour grapes and it was ultimately too little too late. Iron Fish was able to mount a 4-0 lead by the time there was 10:30 left in the third. It was only then Champagne decided to awake from it slumber and pump in three unanswered goals. With the goalie pulled and years of poor health decisions weighing on the Champagne roster, they were unable to complete the comeback, falling 4-3 to Iron Fish. Yes, Champagne Athletics, the team whose name was on the title of the tournament, was unable to win a game at the Champagne Showcase. Trust me, I’m 10x more embarrassed than you are.
Champagne Athletics not capitalizing on another opportunity en route to a 4-3 loss. God damn it
The Ship
Bowline was the team of destiny this year, handling Iron Fish by a score of 6-3 en route to the inaugural Champagne Showcase Championship. Bowline goaltender Jeff Ryan was named tournament MVP.
Bowline celebrating their championship
The trophy before I got my hands on it
Aftermath
Being the gritty event that it was, we had the very crafty Chris Thomas liquid cementing together trophies the night before puck-drop, in cleaning up after we were done, ya boi went to get the excess liquid out of the trophy and it completely fell apart and shattered on the ground.
The trophy after I got my hands on it
Tough look for the tournament namesake and favorite to embarrassingly lose the only game he played then break the champions’ trophy less than a half-hour after another team wins it.
What’s next?
Being that this was only the first year, and it was thrown together so quickly, we would love to continue to grow this thing and get better at it with each passing year. If you or someone you know wants to get involved, please message me on social or shoot me an email at champagneathletics@gmail.com. For something like this, we believe the sky is the limit. Plus I really need to win a game in this thing for my mental health. I’ve been stewing on this loss since Saturday.
Again, a thousand thank you’s
to everyone. The sponsors, the vendors, the fans, the volunteers, the donators and every one in between. Even if you just shared the event on social- we appreciate you. I love the City of Detroit and the sport of hockey more than a lot of things in life, so being able to celebrate both of those with so many great people was a fantastic experience. Until next year.
– Frank 🍾
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