The Foligno Face-Off ended on Mother’s Day after raising more than $200,000 for breast cancer research, with every dollar going directly to a new grant in Minnesota through the V Foundation and Hockey Fights Cancer. Fans picked sides between Team Nick and Team Marcus and donated $17, or any amount they wanted, to back the cause.
Marcus Foligno and Nick Foligno, Minnesota Wild forwards, created the campaign to honor their mother, Janis Foligno, who died of breast cancer in July 2009. The brothers teamed up this season with the NHL, the NHL Players’ Association, the V Foundation for Cancer Research, the Wild and Hockey Fights Cancer, turning a family loss into a fundraising push that has now delivered real money for research.
The scale matters because the grant will fund breast cancer research in Minnesota, and because the money is not being filtered through overhead or diverted elsewhere. The Folignos said the effort has been about more than a single campaign from the start; they have been raising awareness ever since their mother died nearly 17 years ago, and this year’s total gives that work a new measure of reach.
Marcus recalled the family’s first game in Minnesota against Chicago, saying Janis came to the arena with her husband and their four children. That memory sits at the center of the fundraiser, but the push also carried a tension that made it feel current: Nick was injured and not in the lineup when the Blackhawks played the Wild in Chicago on Nov. 26, even as the brothers’ on-ice story remained linked to the off-ice campaign they built together.
Nick said they are fighting together now, on the ice and in this cause, to realize a dream their mother would have wanted for them. He also said the work does not stop when the campaign ends, because the fight against breast cancer goes on. The fundraiser has closed, but the research money is just starting to move.
