Doubleplay Sports

Many professional athletes in the 1980’s didn’t hesitate to let a moustache sprout on their upper lips. Lanny MacDonald sported a wild whiskered arrangement as the captain of the Calgary Flames, and former Oakland A’s closer Dennis Eckersley’s grew a horseshoe style ‘stache.

While some athletes still sport moustaches today, this month, more of your favourite athlete’s faces will be adorned with a soup strainer, in support of a good cause.

Movember, a movement started in 1999 to raise awareness and funds for men’s health issues, particularly prostate cancer, is becoming a phenomenon in the sports industry. Many athletes and sports personalities are taking charitable donations and growing out moustaches to raise money for men’s health.

The movement is a fun way for athletes to participate and raise money for a very important cause.

“It’s a great cause and a great reason to grow a sick moustache,” says Dallas Stars forward Eric Nystrom.

For Washington Nationals pitcher Collin Balester, the idea of growing a moustache initially started off as a competition but it has grown too much more.

“I have a moustache because it all started when me and my buddy Anthony Slama, who plays for the Minnesota Twins, had a bet to see who would keep the stache’ the longest (which I won). I went to spring training that year and just kind of got a buzz from teammates, media, and fans so I just kept it and like it now”

Balester was a nominee for the 2011 Robert Goulet Memorial Mustached American of the Year, an award that is given out to a person who not only has a great moustache but has been active in charitable and community work. Balester has used the attention from the award to promote awareness for men’s health. Balester has frequently been using Twitter as a platform to support Movember and has raised over a thousand dollars in the early stages of Movember through donations at his webpage at Movember.com

“I am a great moustached American that enjoys helping and doing charitable work in my community,” says Balester.

Movember.com logo

TSN, Canada’s most popular sports network, has been very active in raising money and awareness for Movember.

Four TSN personalities -Gino Reda, Jay Onrait, Dan O’Toole and Cabbie Richards- have started a competition to see who can not only grow the biggest moustache but also raise the most money. Updates have been giving consistently on TSN’s Sportscenter and each participating member has made their own page on Movember.com

Hockey Analyst Gino Reda is all too familiar with prostate cancer. Reda’s uncle was diagnosed with prostate cancer just over a year ago. Fortunately, the disease was caught early, but for Reda, the experience opened his eyes to the importance of getting checked.

“I went on a hunting trip with seven of my friends and we sat around a table. They were asking me if I was going to grow a moustache. I said yes. I had brought up that one and seven men get diagnosed with prostate cancer. I looked around the table and there were seven of us. I spoke up and said that it’s likely that one of us will be affected,” says Reda.

“The disease is real. We need to make sure that everyone does whatever they can to be checked.”

Morning commentator Dan O’Toole says that having the platform of being on TV every day made it an easy decision to get involved and that the competition was too fun and too important to pass up.

“I want to help raise awareness for prostate cancer. That’s a given, but to get the opportunity to grow facial hair on TV, how awesome is that? I have never in my life grown a beard/moustache for more than two weeks, so I am excited to see the end result. My saving grace may be the HD cameras, as the moustache may be so small; the old cameras may not have picked it up.”

Jay Onrait, who also does morning commentary, has actively been promoting Movember through TV and social media. He says that Canada has embraced Movember and he feels truly fortunate to raise money for such a good cause.

“It’s a great cause. The coolest thing is how this country has seemed to embrace this so much. I don’t know if it’s because we are a bunch of moustache-embracing Canadians but Canada has embraced Movember. It is truly a great thing for a great cause,” says Onrait.

Reporter Cabbie Richards says that by promoting awareness and by having genuine fun that he hopes to engage more people to support and donate to the cause.

“It is a whole lot of fun and whenever you can attach fun to fundraising it engages people more and can hopefully open and continue a dialogue. This campaign has grown exponentially every year. The bottom line is we want to raise awareness and funds for prostate cancer, and for me it’s a very fun way of fundraising,” says Richards.

Movember.com raised 22.3 million dollars for men’s health issues in Canada alone in 2010. They hope to raise even more money this year and will likely accomplish that feat with increased publicity of the event.