As we'd first learned back in June, Neil Peart's Commemorative Hockey Drum Kit was on display at all 5 Canadian dates on Rush's R40 Live tour, and fans were given the opportunity to sit behind the kit with a $10 donation to the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation. In addition to the hockey kit fundraiser, there was an associated eBay auction where fans were able to bid on some autographed Rush memorabilia including a Sabian Paragon Cymbal and a limited edition, DW R40 Icon Snare. Drum Workshop announced via a tweet a couple of weeks ago that donations from the hockey kit photo ops along with the money raised from the online auction raised a total of $25,547.28 CDN. The director of public relations for The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, Kevin Shea, released the following statement via Brave Words last week:
These fundraising efforts - which included the creativity and hard work of several companies in order to bring to fruition - were very important to The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation. Not only did they bring a substantial amount of funding for cancer research at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, but it took our vision of conquering cancer in our lifetime to thousands of Rush fans. Sincere thanks to all those involved with the creation and execution of this promotion, and to all the Rush fans who contributed to our work by getting a great souvenir photo, or by bidding on the Rush items. Special thanks to Neil Peart and his bandmates for their extreme generosity.
The iconic custom DW hockey kit was created in 2009 and features graphics of all 30 NHL logos and custom ice blue hardware. The kit was used in Peart's recording of The Hockey Theme written by Dolores Clamen which was made available on iTunes with a portion of proceeds benefitting Hockey Fights Cancer. The kit has been on display in the Hockey Hall of Fame since 2010 and will now permanently reside at Studio Bell, home of the National Music Centre, and join over 2,000 other Canadian music artifacts in NMC's collection. Thanks to RushFanForever for the heads up.
