The Dominion Post
He’s just 8 years old and knee-high to a hockey stick, but no matter: Branden Custer was a hat-trick-in-the-making Sunday afternoon, at the Morgantown Municipal Ice Rink.
On a pair of skates that didn’t seem to add to his height at all, he etched his way up and down the rink.
Branden kicked up ice shavings here, while going backwards (on purpose) there.
“He’s been playing youth hockey since he was 3,” mom Jeanette Custer said.
“I guess that makes him a veteran.”
On this afternoon, it also made him a marketing machine, of sorts, for WVU Medicine Children’s — the Morgantown medical hub that treats ailing youngsters from all 55 counties in the Mountain State, plus the surrounding region.
The occasion was the first-ever “Miracles on Ice” fundraiser for the student-led MountaineerTHON, which in turn raises money for the above.
WVU Medicine Children’s is also part of the Children’s Miracle Network, and its 170-member hospitals across the country.
With his towhead-blond hair and his complexion made ruddy by the ice, Branden was the embodiment of health — laced to a pair of skates he definitely knew how to use.
Other children aren’t as lucky. As said, WVU Medicine Children’s is a busy place.
In 2015, for example, young patients there underwent 3,500 surgeries, including 250 pediatric heart procedures.
Some are admitted suffering from kidney disease, cancer and rare conditions. The numbers could make a guy fall off his skates. More on that.
“This is such a good cause,” Jeanette Custer said, of the effort at the rink. “It’s for the kids.”
Branden, meanwhile, wasn’t the only hockey-crazed dude on the ice Sunday.
The effort was co-hosted by WVU’s championship club hockey team, whose members turned out in their uniforms for the day.
“We raise money for groups all the time,” said team member Frankie Gerbasi, whose skates made him look even taller — since he’s already 6-foot-3 without them. “But this one is really special for us.”
He also likes that by raising dollars, he and his teammates are also raising the profile of hockey in a town more synonymous with football and basketball.
Gerbasi enjoys seeing kids like Branden take up the game. He was about the same age as Branden when he started playing back home in Howell, N.J.
It’s not all about fierce body-checks, fist-fights and two minutes in the penalty box, Gerbasi said.
“Hockey’s a true team sport. You can’t be selfish out there. You’re playing for your brothers.”
“Team,” was the watch-word at the Morgantown Municipal Ice Rink, on Sunday.
A number of WVU sororities were there to help raise money with a bake sale. And Levi Huff, the student who serves as the executive director of Mountaineer-THON, was, too.
The organization’s signature event is an annual eight-hour dance mara-thon, which brought in more than $45,000 to
WVU Medicine Children’s last year.
This year’s THON is April 7 at Stansbury Hall.
And Huff has a very specific goal, which goes back to that earlier reference about numbers.
“We want to raise $64,286,” he said.
“That’s $1 for every kid treated at WVU Medicine Children’s last year.”
