Goat Canucks Goat-Vancouver Sun Article!

Here is the story that is already up on the Vancouver Sun website. It will appear in the hard copy addition that goes out in the morning. Here is a copy of the story as well (although the website has a cool colour picture of a goat!).

VANCOUVER — There’s a group of Vancouver Canucks-mad fans in the metropolis of Murrayville, Langley, who are not only growing playoff goatees but plan to donate a live goat to a needy African family for each game the Canucks win during their run for the Stanley Cup.

“We’re hoping that’s 16 goats we’ll be buying,” said Fraser Valley University student Joel Nagtegaal.
If that happens, a small herd of goats will gather somewhere in Africa and a bigger herd will assemble in downtown Vancouver for a glimpse of the Stanley Cup.
“If we win the cup, that’s 16 goats at $25 apiece for a total of $400. It’s a small price to pay,” Nagtegaal said.

Nagtegaal and his family and friends play roller hockey each Sunday afternoon in the Murrayville Hockey Box on Fraser Highway at 224th Street, and that’s where the idea grew hair.

Sitting around Sunday drinking beer, they were talking about growing their playoff goatees when Nagtegaal’s cousin Matthew Beimers — a teacher at Fraser Valley Christian high — reminded them about the goat sponsorship program the school supports, in which families in Sierra Leone receive a goat for every $25 donated.
“It wasn’t long before we moved from goatees to goats and we decided we’d buy a goat for a poor family for every game the Canucks win,” Nagtegaal said.

The group is hoping other fans will join in and pledge to buy a goat for each Canucks victory.

Nagtegaal said a Web page was being put together to encourage donations. “Someone’s offered to do it for us for free,” he said.

Already, news of the campaign has appeared on the Facebook social networking site and a number of inquiries have been made. “The Facebook group is called GoatCanucksGoat, or people can find information at crwrc.org,” he said.

Joel and his pals attend Canucks games during the regular season and have tickets for Game 2 of the playoffs.

“That’s Friday and we’ll be pretty pumped. Hopefully, it will be a goat for someone.”