Philadelphia Business Journal

Philadelphia Flyers founder and Comcast-Spectacor chairman Ed Snider announced Thursday the creation of the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation, which has a goal of providing new opportunities for inner-city children to participate in the sport of hockey.

Snider said the foundation has already formed a partnership with the School District of Philadelphia, in which public school children will participate in on-ice hockey clinics as part of their physical education curriculum.

Through the program, 450 Philadelphia elementary and middle school students will participate in a series of four-week hockey clinics that will run from October through March each year.

"Hockey is the greatest game ever invented, and my hope is to provide a chance for a whole new generation of children to learn and play the game," said Snider. "Through hockey, I want our participants to be able to learn about life, achieving successes and scoring goals, not just on the ice, but in life."

Snider is providing the initial funding of the foundation; the amount of the funding was not disclosed.

The foundation will fund the purchase of hockey equipment for the use of every child in the program, as well as provide the costs of transporting children to and from the ice. Over time, the foundation and school district plan to develop a districtwide ice hockey program at the middle school level, in which children from a wide variety of Philadelphia public schools compete against each other.

The first three Philadelphia schools participating in the program during the 2005-06 school year will be the John Patterson Elementary School, the Thurgood Marshall Elementary School and the Joseph Greenberg Elementary School.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005