Players are seen taking part in the World's Longest Hockey Game ever, near Edmonton on Thursday, Feb. 11. This game, which generated over $1.8 million for cancer research, lasted last 252 hours, many of them in bone-chilling temperatures. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson)

The World’s Longest Hockey Game (ever) is finally over–after 252 hours

The record-setting seventh edition of The World’s Longest Hockey Game ended this morning.

How long was it?

It began on February 4, National Cancer Day, at a rink near Edmonton.

Forty players took turns playing non-stop shinny for 10 days and nights–skating their way into the Guinness Book of Records, now officially known as Guinness World Records.

Through much of their 10 days and nights on the ice, players faced bone-chilling temperatures.(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson)

Just before 6 a.m. today, they stopped.

After 252 hours.

Over $1.84 million–and counting–was raised for cancer research.

But this year’s edition of the game, first played in 2003, may have been the toughest ever.

Skate blades broke, pucks shattered, masks didn’t hold and goalie pads cracked as temperatures dropped to between -40 C and -55 C, factoring in the wind chill, for a great many of those 252 hours.

Goalie Andrew Buchanan celebrates as his team score a goal while taking part in the World’s Longest Hockey Game near Edmonton on Feb. 11, 2021. Forty took part in the game that lasted 252 hours. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson)

Goalie Andrew Buchanan, a firefighter and paramedic in Strathcona County, about 30 kilometres east of Edmonton where the game was played, told The Canadian Press’s Colette Derworiz: “It’s been out of this world.”

Buchanan said furnaces in the trailers, where players camped out during the game, couldn’t keep up with the cold.

“We’re out on the ice playing for six, eight, 10 hours at a time and then you just want to get some warm sleep … That’s not the case when it’s -54 C with the wind chill.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

With files from The Canadian Press (Collette Derworiz)

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