A Maritime man who makes furniture out of discarded hockey sticks is hoping that Sidney Crosby will accept an invite to his hockey-stick shed to sit in a rocking chair he made to help raise money for a cancer charity.
“If we can get Sidney to sit in it, we are going to donate the money to Ride for Cancer,” said Martin Benoit who lives in Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia.
Benoit said his passion for fabricating furniture out of old wooden sticks started about 20 years ago, when he made his first hockey-stick chair for his son to raise money for a local charity.
“I never sell anything. Everything that I make, I donate all the time,” he said.
Martin Benoit’s shed in Lower Sackville is completely decorated with discarded hockey sticks.
He’s made chairs, benches, coat racks and the bar stools that sit at his hockey stick bar inside a shed that is lined to the rafters with stick wainscoting.
“There is probably between 1,200 and 1,300 easily,” he said.
This year the cause he’s chosen to support hits very close to home. Inspired by his wife who, over the past few years, has beaten the odds, overcoming three kinds of cancer.
“She had treatment and she is doing really well. She is an angel and now we are in the process of giving back,” said Benoit.
His wife, Darlene Pomry, has recovered from breast cancer, appendix cancer and stomach cancer and is proud of her husband for supporting such a worthy cause.
“There is just so many people who have either lived it or loved someone who has lived it, and he is giving back,” she said brings her to tears.
His latest auction item is a carefully crafted rocking chair made with the same kind of old-fashioned wooden sticks used by one of the best players in the world, Sidney Crosby.
“I was very particular to make sure you could see his name at many different places so if you look on the side it says Sidney Crosby,” he said.
Their goal is to track down Crosby next time he is home in Nova Scotia and have him sign the chair to boost up the bid, all of which Benoit said will be donated to the cancer fundraiser.
“Come on over,” said Pomry who said Crosby has an open invitation to visit the stick shed.
If having him in this chair can help someone else beat the odds, it’s worth a shot.
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