Every Stanley Cup winner looks forward to their official day with the Cup, and Los Angeles Kings’ Dustin Brown is no exception. Brown, however, used his time with Cup differently than his teammates.
The first thing Brown did with the Stanley Cup while it was in Ithaca, N.Y., was host a photo shoot. He didn’t charge money for a photo op, but instead asked for donations to a cause very close to his heart.
In January, the cousin of Brown’s wife, Nicole, was critically injured from a suicide bomber attack while on duty in Afghanistan. His name was Christopher Bordoni, and he died of his injuries 10 days after the attack.
“When we talked about doing a public event, the first thing me and my wife thought — we always do a lot of charity stuff — we had Semper Fi right at the top of the list. It was a good fit,” Brown told NHL.com.
The Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund is a nonprofit set up to provide financial support for injured and critically ill members of the U.S. Armed Forces and their families.
Brown asked people to donate whatever they could, and also sold raffle tickets for a chance to win a personal photo with Brown himself, as well as a miniature replica Stanley Cup.
At the end of the day, Brown and his wife raised $12,176. That total does not include independent donations from the Brown family and Ithaca’s fire and police departments.
Christopher’s father, Tim, explained to NHL.com that he was struck by the fact that Brown thought of his family first.
“The first thing that Dustin thought of, which is awesome, was how to help out,” Tim Bordoni told the site. “Throughout Dustin’s whole career, they helped out charities. This is personal to them because it’s their cousin. That’s the person they thought of after everything — not this party, not any other public event. Helping out Semper Fi was the first thing they thought of."
