World’s Longest Hockey Game returns to Sherwood Park for cancer fundraising

The latest attempt at the world's longest hockey game starts Thursday in Sherwood Park.

Forty players will take to the ice in Sherwood Park starting Thursday night for the return of a hockey game looking to break a Guinness World Record in the name of cancer treatment.

The World’s Longest Hockey Game is expected to last 261 hours. Donations from the 11-day-long endeavour will go toward the Cure Cancer Foundation.

Brent Saik started the event more than 20 years ago after losing his father to cancer. This year, he and his team are raising money for CAR-T Cell immunotherapy equipment at the Cross Cancer Institute.

The therapy has been lauded as one of the most promising cancer treatments available, but Alberta patients currently have to send their cells out of province.

“It’s very expensive to do that treatment, about $500,000 a patient here,” Saik said on Thursday. “Unfortunately, not everybody gets treatment.”

The Cross Cancer Institute is looking to raise $2.5 million by fall 2026 to make the immunotherapy accessible in Edmonton.

Over its two-decade-long tenure, Saik’s hockey game has raised more than $9 million for cancer charities. He says each game, hosted every two years, has its own story. This year, that story is one of puddles and layered ice as volunteers and players combat warm weather.

“We’ve played in -63 C weather (before), and that’s what I love about it,” Saik said. “Guinness tells us that we don’t have to do this outside, but it creates an element to … push ourselves a little further, to try and understand what it’s like going through cancer treatments and win the battle at the end.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Sean McClune