The Ottawa Icebreaker has selected GEERG as its charity for 2008. The Icebreaker is a soccer tournament hosted by the Ottawa Internationals Soccer Club, which takes place each May and June for boys and girls between the ages of 9 and 18. In 2007, 342 teams competed in the event and a similar turnout is expected this year.

The Icebreaker prides itself in doing things a little differently than do other tournaments. In 1998, Icebreaker officials discontinued the usual soccer ornamentation (such as soccer balls, nets, cleats and players) on its medals and instead decided to use an image completely unrelated to soccer. For the past ten years, cold-weather animals have adorned Icebreaker patches, balls and medals. Past animals include the polar bear, the penguin, the narwhal, the muskox, the arctic wolf, the snowy owl, the woolly mammoth, the bobcat, the big-horn sheep and the caribou.

The animal selected for the 2008 tournament is the Greenland shark. Also, the Icebreaker has for the last four years financially supported different animal-related charities with some of the proceeds from the tournament. The charity chosen for 2008 is GEERG. Proceeds received by GEERG from the Icebreaker will be used to support our tagging programme.

GEERG co-directors Jeffrey Gallant and Chris Harvey-Clark were very pleased to learn of GEERG's selection and both look forward to tagging a shark which will be named "Icebreaker" in honour of all the boys and girls participating in the tournament.

Ottawa Icebreaker Soccer Tournament