Don Stoddart is always looking for business – but this weekend, he is also looking for votes.
Don Stoddart is always looking for business – but this weekend, he is also looking for votes.
The Brampton mortgage broker is one of 100 finalists in the Kraft Hockey Goes On, which will award $1 million to minor hockey associations across Canada.
“It is truly an honour; I never, ever expected to be nominated,” says Stoddart, a broker with Dominion Lending Centres Key Mortgage Partners and the kind of faithful volunteer for minor league hockey the event honours.
The five grand-prize winners each receive $100,000 for their favourite minor hockey association, with 20 second-place prizes of $20,000 up for grabs. The vote this weekend will determine the final 25, with each of them guaranteed to be in the money.
“Voting is this weekend, so I encourage everyone to help us help girls’ hockey,” he told MortgageBrokerNews.ca.
The on-line voting begins 9 a.m. Saturday, March 23, and closes midnight Sunday. You can find Don Stoddart’s profile on the www.krafthockeygoeson.ca website.
Stoddart has been a volunteer with the Brampton Canadette Girls Hockey Association for the past 12 years, where he has been treasurer, ice scheduler, city liaison, rep banquet director, rep development co-ordinator, team uniform and apparel director… actually, the list of his achievements and jobs throughout girls’ minor hockey are long and impressive.
Stoddart has two daughters, the eldest, Rainee, studying veterinary medicine at Guelph University, and Brooke (age 18) who will be attending the Rochester Institute of Technology in the fall.
This year he established ‘The Two Nations College Prep Series,’ a tournament showcasing talented young women from the U.S. and Canada and played on both sides of the border.
The purpose of the tournament is to allow both Canadian and U.S. schools to scout the girls for the potential academic/athletic scholarships, all so they can receive the maximum exposure to potential post-secondary schools.
“I couldn’t have done this without being a mortgage broker,” Stoddart says, looking back at the long hours and tens of thousands of kilometres of travel he has logged from Ottawa to Windsor all in the name of promoting and supporting minor hockey. “And to think, this all started when my daughter was 4 years old, and this year we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of girls’ minor hockey.”
