The “White Out for Mandi” drew a record crowd of 1,066 Friday night as fans filled Ingalls Rink to support Mandi Schwartz ’11, the women’s hockey player diagnosed with leukemia in December 2008.
The Bulldogs dropped their home conference opener 4–1, but raised more than $9,000 for Schwartz and her family at the event. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute raised $1,000 in a fundraiser last weekend on Schwartz’s behalf. Contributions to the cause were collected instead of admission, and the women’s hockey team lined up donors to pledge based on total attendance. The team also sold white t-shirts with Mandi’s jersey number, 17, on campus throughout the week.
The previous attendance high for a women’s hockey game was about 800 in a March 2005 playoff game against Princeton.
UPDATE: November 14, 2010 7:22 p.m.
The “White Out” at Ingalls raised more than $15,000 once final donations and pledges were tabulated, women’s hockey forward Aleca Hughes ’12 wrote in a Facebook message Sunday afternoon. Schwartz watched her teammates compete against RPI in Friday’s game via an online broadcast, Hughes said.