'Drop the Puck on Cancer' tournament raises money for Luna Cares

Drop the Puck on Cancer took place over the course of three days at Goggin Ice Center. The charity hockey and broomball tournament between fraternities and sororities benefitted Luna Cares and was hosted by the Collegiate Charities here at Miami.

The focus of the event was the full-contact elite fraternity hockey tournament. This year, the tournament included eight teams -- double the number of participating teams last year.

Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI) was crowned this year's champion in a 4-3 double-overtime victory over Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) on Saturday.

"Miami has a huge hockey culture," Thatcher Creber, Miami's head of the Executive Board of Collegiate Charities said. "All the teams playing are in the elite intramural division so it's really good hockey teams playing. Then the whole sorority broomball aspect just adds to all the people coming and being involved overall."

This is Drop the Puck's third year on campus, and is expected to be the most successful yet. All proceeds will benefit Luna Cares, which is a nonprofit fund created in 2010 to financially support women undergoing treatment for cancer and their families.

Luna Cares was founded by Lisa Ciampa in honor of her mother, who lost her battle with cancer amid the anxiety that she was placing a financial burden on her family because of her medical expenses. The fund continues to support local women in the Oxford community who are undergoing cancer treatment.

The hockey tournament started on Tuesday April 4 with eight teams. Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) won a highly contested game against Pi Kappa Alpha (PIKE), Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI) handily defeated Delta Chi, Sigma Pi narrowly beat Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE), and Sigma Phi Epsilon (Sig Ep) defeated Theta Chi.

In the semifinals on Thursday April 6, FIJI narrowly outplayed Sig Ep and SAE beat Sig Pi to make it to the championship.

The crowd on all three days was sizable and active when cheering for their teams.

The tournament hosted four individual sorority broomball games, which took place on Thursday and Saturday in between the hockey matches.

All in all, sixteen fraternity and sorority chapters participated in the event, which raised over $7,000 last year.

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"Personally I'm not a huge hockey fan but it was a lot of fun to go out and watch the different fraternities compete," freshman Phi Gamma Delta member Nick Sam said. "It was cool that a ton of people showed up for a philanthropy event. It was a good cause, but still a lot of fun."

The amount of money raised will be disclosed in the upcoming days.