The Christie, one of Europe’s largest cancer treatment centres, will take centre stage on the Storm’s warmup jerseys for the 2016/17 Elite Ice Hockey League season, after a fan led design & vote campaign ended with Simon Baileys “Christie” jersey being selected as the winning design.

The Manchester based hospital, who treat more than 44,000 patients a year, began in the 1890’s as a 30 bed hospital, set up to deal with “new” diseases such as mule spinners’ cancer and chimney sweep’s cancer. Today the centre is world renowned for its pioneering research into the care, treatment, and research of cancer.

Since the Manchester Storm’s return last season, the Storm have pressed ahead with raising as much money as possible for the Christie – who despite being an NHS hospital, still rely upon fundraising and donations to help fund the level of care, treatment, and research they provide.

Last season saw the Storm wear pink jerseys for the very first time in their history, with the jerseys being sold off to raise funds for the Christie. Not only did the players wear pink, but the club also launched a range of limited edition pink t-shirts, as well as numerous other activities to help raise funds.

For the 2016/17 season however, the Storm will be representing The Christie at every game, Home & Away! Simon “SLB” Bailey, known for the live Twitter updates of StormLive, won the Storm’s Warm Up shirt contest with his design, which utilises the colours of the Christie. The winning design won the contest with 36% of the total votes – an incredible 528 individual fans voted for their choice of warmup shirt.

One aspect of the design that has caught many peoples attention, is the ability for fans, for a minimum donation of £10, to place the name of friends or family who have have suffered from cancer on the arms of the jersey. All money raised from this will go directly back to the Christie.

Names can be submitted via summercomp@manchesterstorm.com and the deadline for these will be at 5pm on Wednesday the 15th of June. Please include in your email your name, the requested name, your address, and your contact details, and how much you would like to donate per name. Names will only go on the shirt ONCE the donation has been made via JustGiving.

For more information about The Christie, be sure to visit their dedicated page on our website: http://manchesterstorm.com/the-christies/