UF’s club hockey team is crowdfunding to prepare for its upcoming season.
The team launched a GoFundMe page to raise $10,000 of the $40,000 it needs to compete in the 2015 to 2016 season.
Student Government allots the team $10,000, and the players are left to raise the other $30,000.
Mark Finkelstein, the treasurer of the club team, got the idea after seeing other club hockey teams use the website.
Because UF does not have a hockey rink, the team has to travel to Jacksonville if it wants to practice or host a home game during the regular season.
“If a couple people donate $20, I mean, that pays for one hotel room for a night,” the 19-year-old accounting sophomore said. “People don’t realize how significant any amount of money helps us.”
So far, the page has raised $745 since it launched in February.
Donors mostly include friends and family, but the team’s strong fan bases in both Jacksonville and Orlando have also donated to the cause.
By the end of this season, players carpooled to practices and games because the team could no longer afford to rent vans. As a result, the team only has one 90-minute practice each week during the season, said Brendan Nicholson, the team’s president. The 20-year-old accounting sophomore said the team does everything it can to minimize costs.
If the club raises enough money for this season, it’ll automatically start raising money for the next season.
There is no end date to donate to the GoFundMe.
“It is expensive, it’s time-consuming, but I just love to play,” Finkelstein said. “It’s one of those things that I’ve been doing for most of my life, and I just don’t want to give it up. That’s how most of the guys on the team are.”
[A version of this story ran on page 9 on 4/7/2015 under the headline “Club hockey team put on ice to raise funds via GoFundMe”]
The UF club men’s ice hockey team poses for a picture after winning the Savannah Tire Hockey Classic tournament.
