Is it every year? Okay, there you go. We were not aware of it.
All the Canadian athletes started waving this flag and an amazing thing happened. All the athletes from the different countries swarmed the Canadian flag and started grabbing the flag and waving it with us because they wanted to be part of our team. It was just incredible.
I think what I'm trying to say here is, when we talk about Katie and we talk about the challenges that the athletes have, funding is obviously an issue. For us it's a little different. About 14 years ago, we, at the NHL Players' Association, established a goals and dreams fund. Mike Gartner and Adam Graves and a bunch of us wanted to give back to grassroots hockey.
The gentleman who presented before us talked about grassroots. That's very important, obviously, in sport. Over the last 12 or 13 years, we've given hockey equipment to over 60,000 kids around the world. That's coming personally from NHL players, from those who played 12 or 13 years ago and from present-day players.
For the 10th anniversary, P.J. Stock, who's on Hockey Night in Canada and was my teammate with the Boston Bruins, Devin Smith, and I travelled around. We went to Bosnia, to Moscow, to Sweden, just to give the gift of hockey equipment and sport, for kids to be active. I hope that one day one of those participants will be in the Olympics and have the opportunity that Katie and I also had.
In closing, I'd like to say that what Katie talks about with the funding and the grassroots is something that I'd encourage everyone in this room to be creative about to try to help our athletes, because our standing internationally is quite remarkable, and to have that experience to be proud of—not being part of the hockey team, but being part of Team Canada—is quite remarkable.
I thank you for your time. I very much appreciate it.