Members of the Boston University men’s varsity ice hockey, club ice hockey and club inline hockey teams will be sporting mustaches throughout November in order to promote men’s health awareness.
The hockey players are joining together to participate in the Movember Project, an initiative that encourages men to grow mustaches for the month of November and raise money for men’s health issues.
“The goal is for people to grow a mustache for the entire month,” said BU inline hockey team captain and president Ethan Shibutani, who organized the Movember collaboration. “By doing that, your duty is to make others aware of men’s health issues that are brushed under the table.”
Although the inline team has participated by itself in the Movember project for the past two years, Shibutani said he decided to reach out to the club and varsity ice hockey teams this year in order to bring more attention to the Movember campaign.
“Our team itself is not the most well-known team on campus, but we really believe in this cause and think that it’s something that male students should be very aware of,” Shibutani, a School of Management senior, said. “So the goal, by involving these other teams and making the campaign more high-profile, was really to get more eyes on the campaign and get more people thinking about men’s health issues.”
BU hockey’s Movember team currently includes 13 players from the inline team, 11 players from the men’s varsity team and four members from the club hockey team, he said.
While the inline team alone raised $1,200 last year, Shibutani said he hopes all three teams will be able to raise at least $2,000.
Movember Grassroots and Engagement Manager Andy Leonetti said the campaign is a unique way to raise awareness for men’s health issues that often do not receive much exposure.
“It’s not just one day,” he said. “It’s a 30-day commitment to growing out a mustache, supporting men’s health, and to really starting the conversation, which is where we see actual change happening. It’s through the conversation from having the mustache that we see guys taking a more proactive approach to their health.”
The Movember Project is becoming increasingly popular in the college community, Leonetti said. Participants often form groups to register.
“We see that people who do register that join a team, they’re more engaged in the campaign and they tend to raise more funds,” he said. “It’s a lot more fun to grow a mustache or support a mustache in a group than just by yourself. It keeps people engaged longer through the campaign.”
Captain and President of BU’s club hockey team Bob Klein, an SMG senior, said the club hockey team has participated in the Movember Project previously as well, though this year they will be joining forces with the other teams for the first time.
“It’s really easy — all you do is grow a mustache,” he said. “It’s a team bonding thing, too. Everyone looks like an idiot with a mustache on their face, and we all make fun of each other.”
Inline hockey team member Jared Angin, said he hopes the teams’ Movember efforts will not only raise money for men’s health issues, but also encourage awareness.
“Even if you can’t donate money, [you can] really support the cause,” Angin, an SMG junior, said. “There’s a lot of other campaigns such as breast cancer or autism that really get a lot of press, but men’s health, in general, and the things that happen to us as guys can really fall by the wayside. Our goal is really to bring more light to it.”
Donations can be made to BU hockeys’ Movember team page at http://us.movember.com/team/1192353.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
