Islanders’ Matt Martin Among Nominees for NHL Foundation Award

Matt Martin (Islanders.nhl.com)

Matt Martin of the New York Islanders joins P.K. Subban of the Montreal Canadiens and Mark Giordano of the Calgary Flames as the nominees for NHL Foundation Award the National Hockey League announced on Tuesday.

Martin, Giordano and Subban were the top three vote getters for the award, which is presented to the player that best applies the core values of hockey, while providing a commitment to perseverance and teamwork in enriching the lives of the people in his community.

The three players will be vying to take home the hardware at the 2016 NHL Awards, which will be held at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada on June 22.

Martin, playing in his seventh season with the Islanders, has spent the past six working with various organization focused on children and the military.

Last summer he created the Matt Martin Foundation, to help continue raising the funding and awareness of the causes that are closest to him. Some of those causes include, the NYPD Widows’ and Children’s Fund, the Boomer Esiason Foundation for Cystic Fibrosis, Defending the Blueline, Association for Children with Down Syndrome and the New York Islanders Children’s Foundation.

The inaugural year of the Matt Martin Foundation helped to raise over 75,000 for these charities.

Giordano, the Flames captain, spent the last two seasons along with his wife teaming with the Calgary Board of Education creating a new program called Team Giordano. Team Giordano helps four low income schools in the Calgary area with providing resources that they may need.

The funding from the program helps provide those schools with purchasing computers, journals and floor hockey equipment. Students in the program are encouraged to achieve their goals, using the “5 G’s” that Giordano believes helps lead to success.

Since he began the program, Team Giordano has donated 200,000 dollars to the four schools, helping to impact the lives of around 1,400 students.

Subban, a seventh year defenseman for the Canadiens, announced in September 2015 that he will donate 10 million dollars over seven years to the Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Committed to leaving a legacy not only on the ice, but also in the community, Subban decided to focus his philanthropic efforts on helping sick children and their families. The result of which has helped to pull in over 800,000 dollars in fundraising efforts for the MCHF, through several of the activities and support of the P.K. Subban Foundation this past season.

Subban’s gregarious personality and far-reaching social media presence has gone a long way to help him engage the community and raise the awareness for those causes nearest to him.