# Amaze-Balls!

A huge congratulations to Dr. Beth and the 39 other women that just finished the Longest Game of Hockey for Cystic Fibrosis. The game started over 243 hours ago, on August 26, 2011. Since the puck dropped, 40 women and numerous volunteers (see here for a full list of names) have been sharing the ice, the rink, and several trailers, all with the purpose of raising awareness and money to help support research to treat and eventually cure Cystic Fibrosis. If that isn’t a huge cup of inspirational inspiration, then I don’t know what is.

Think about that. Two hundred and forty-three hours, 5 minutes of non-stop hockey. That’s mind-blowing! My mind = blown.

Consider this in full. Each team required 6 players plus a goalie to play the game during the entire 243+ hours. This means there were always 14 players taking part in any one shift. The first and last shifts (a total of approximately 2.5 hours) were played by all players. If we translate this into person-hours (or, amaze-balls-hours, as I like to call them), we have $40\times 2.5h+14\times 240.5h + 40\times\frac{5}{60}h=3470h:20m$ amaze-balls-hours; roughly 87 amaze-balls-hours on the ice per person. Eighty-seven hours. More than the equivalent of 2 full-time weeks of work. On the ice. Skating. Scoring. Sweating. Dehydrating. Aching. Bleeding. Blistering.

Unfreaking believable.

On top of all of this, the players and volunteers managed to raise over 113 thousand dollars (at last count)1. That’s freaking incredible. Dr. Beth managed to raise over 3 grand2 on her own, which is definitely not an easy thing to accomplish.

In addition to all of this awesomeness, Dr. Beth (who was on the white team) managed to skate her way to 60+ goals. In hockey parlance, that’s a hat trick of a hat trick of hat tricks times two plus 2 hat tricks – which is a crazy amount of hat tricks for anyone in the hat tricking business to have. Seriously insane. She also received her first ever penalty (for tripping no less).

The score around 8am (Vancouver time) was

I’m so freaking proud of you Dr. Beth. Congratulations on the best and longest game of hockey ever played. Congratulations on raising so much money for such an amazing cause. And thank you for being so freaking awesome in practically every way possible.

1 Donations are still being accepted. Click on the link up there to the right to donate. Every penny helps.

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# Go Dr. Beth Go!

At some point today (or perhaps early tomorrow) we will be able to officially mark the half-way point of Dr. Beth’s epic 10+ day challenge to complete the longest ever continuous game of hockey. For those who might have forgotten, the entire game is being played to raise awareness and money to support research to treat and ultimately cure Cystic Fibrosis. In honour of such an amazing accomplishment, I promise to raise a glass of something booze-y this eve. These are the things that I’m willing to do for Dr. Beth.

Anyway, Dr. Beth had asked that people come down to visit and support her and the team while they are playing. It’s a way to keep the teams’ spirits up, because the task-at-hand is clearly a gruelling one – in mind, body, and spirit. However, since I can’t make it there myself (what with the several thousand kilometre commute that would be required), I thought I would try to come up with a list of slogans that could be proudly displayed in some for of poster goodness. So here you go Dr. Beth; several slogans just for you. Keep up the most awesome work!

• CHUCK NORRIS NEVER COMPLETED A 242+ HOUR LONG GAME OF HOCKEY
• PUCK CYSTIC FIBROSIS
• CYSTIC FIBROSIS CAN SUCK MY DEKE
• YOUR BODY WILL FORGIVE YOU EVENTUALLY
• YOUR BODY WILL FEEL BETTER WHEN IT STOPS HURTING
• JUST THINK HOW EASY A REGULAR GAME OF HOCKEY WILL FEEL NOW
• THIS IS JUST A REGULAR GAME OF HOCKEY WITH A 241 HOUR WARM-UP
I’m also trying to come up with a slogan or three that contain the following hockey terms: zamboni/zamboner, puck bunny, holding, hooking, gross misconduct, five-hole, and/or butt-ending. :)

And don’t forget; if you haven’t donated you can do so by clicking the link on the right side of this page. And feel free to pass on this post so that the word gets out about the need to fund Cystic Fibrosis research.

For those wishing to get a first hand account of the game, check out Dr. Beth’s blog here. Or watch the game live here.

# The Puck Drops Right Now

As of 8 am Pacific time, Dr. Beth’s epic Longest Game of Hockey For Cystic Fibrosis begins (check out the website for live video of the game). If you live in Ontario like me, that means the puck drops at 11am following the official Opening Ceremonies.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this particular event, I have pilfered some writings directly from Dr. Beth’s blog:

The Longest Game of Hockey for CF is many things. It is:

The world record is currently held by a group of hockey players from Edmonton who played a hockey game in February that lasted for 10 days. We intend to beat their record by 65 minutes.

Clearly this isn’t something that just anybody does. That is to say, anyone who attempts to play 10 solid days of hockey has to be part crazy, part glutton for punishment, or 100% Pure Grade A Awesome. In this case, Dr. Beth is very much 100% Pure Grade A Awesome. What’s even more amazing; she’s using her vacation time to play this game. Seriously. You want further evidence of her awesomeness? Check out this article in the Milton Champion. Not enough? How about this article in the Vancouver Metro? Still not enough? Check out this post on the Vancouver Canucks official website.

For those unaware, Milton is where Dr. Beth and I met. While we both grew up in Milton and went to the same high school (and then the same University), our meeting was a bit more random – thank you to a video store in town whose name I completely forget right now. But our meeting wasn’t without a basis. That is, I sat next to Dr. Beth’s sister Nancy all through high school art class. And since 100% Pure Grade A Awesome is a genetic trait, and since Nancy and I were already friends, it’s easy to see how my random meeting with Dr. Beth resulted in an instantaneous friendship.

So, why am I telling you about Dr. Beth’s game? Simple. Money. She needs the money that you might have jingling in your pocket, or in your wallet, or in your piggy bank. It doesn’t matter where it comes from, she needs it. The goal after all is not to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. The goal is to raise money in support of Cystic Fibrosis research. Lots of money. Mountains and mountains of money. So much money that the science-y types who research Cystic Fibrosis will be able to do all the research they need to figure out better treatments, and ultimately a cure.

If you are feeling donate-y, click the link next to the big orange arrow up there. It will take you directly to Dr. Beth’s donation page. Click it. Donate. Feel good. And then treat yourself to a beverage of your choosing for being so awesome. Like a beer. Or a Gin & Tonic. Or both.

For those of you who can, please also tweet this post, share it on your facebook wall, or pass it along via email. The more people we can inform, the better.

Happy donating :)

# Although I’m More Than e Weeks Late, Happy e-Day To All

I can’t believe I missed it.  Just over $e$ weeks ago, mathematicians, statisticians, physicists and other nerds celebrated a very important day; one of the math-i-est of math-y days.  And I missed it.  Missed it!  Gah!

That day was $e$-day.  “What is $e$-day?”, you ask?  Well, it’s only the celebration of Euler‘s1 constant, represented by the lowercase letter $e$.  Specifically

$e=\displaystyle{\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}}\frac{1}{n!}=1+\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{6}+\frac{1}{24}+\ldots\approx 2.71828183\ldots$

Notice how the first two digits have been used to identify the date on which this awesome number is to be celebrated.  Two decimal seven, or February 7.  This year.  Last year.  Every year.  The date that I completely forgot.  Gah!  If I were in Mathemagical class at Hogwarts, Gryffindor would have just lost about $e$ million points2.  Sigh.

Anyway, $e$ is a rather important number in the world of mathematics.  Like $\pi$, it is ubiquitous, appearing even when least expected.  Probably the most bizarre place is in the famous equation

$e^{i\pi}-1=0$.

This particular equation (a.k.a. Euler’s Identity) is rather interesting, at least to math-y type people, given that it combines the multiplicative constant 1, the additive constant 0, the complex (a.k.a. imaginary) unit $i$, Euler’s constant $e$, and my favourite constant $\pi$ into one tidy package.  Math is awesome.

Euler also gave us the exponential function $e^{x}$, which can be written as follows:

$e^{x}=\displaystyle{\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}}\frac{x^n}{n!}.$

And of course, we all know that this is the function whose derivative is itself.  Crazy stuff.  Finally, Euler also gave us the following formula

$e^{i\theta}=\cos{(\theta)}+i\sin{(\theta)},$

which can be used to generate Euler’s Identity (set $\theta=\pi$ and watch the magic happen).

So much awesome in one little constant.

On a fun note, check out this site.  You can determine where in the first 27, 182, 818 base 27 digits of $e$ you can find your name.

• Dan appears 1358 times; the first occurrence starting at position 7066.
• Euler appears only twice; the first occurrence at position 18260334.
• Math appears 43 times; the first occurrence starting at position 125764.
• Pi appears 37535 times; the first occurrence starting at position 443.

1 Pronounced in English as Oiler.  Just like Oiler in the Edmonton Oilers. I know, I can’t believe I just dropped a hockey reference either.

2 Yes, I assume I would be part of Gryffindor, thank you for asking. And it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m now sporting a Harry Potter lightning scar on my forehead.

3 You can find this word cloud here.