The game was the brain child of Wudzy Founder & CEO Jodie Hooper, conceived as a tribute to her father Colin Smith, who passed away form cancer in 2015 – and was held as a charity event to raise money for cancer patients who need help paying for their treatment and with paying for living expenses that continue to mount up when a patient is undergoing treatment and often can’t work.

The game was resounding success with all those involved telling us what a great time they had – and how they all wanted to do it again next year.
With the incredible support from our volunteers, sponsors, players, coaches, officials and spectators we were able to raise just under $20,000.00, which was donated to two cancer patients to help with their treatment costs – via our charity partner Chicks for Charity. Plans are now underway to make this an annual event, with the next game tentatively set for December 2020.

The Inaugural Wudzy AFL Basketball Game was played by past and present stars of the Australian Football League (AFL) and Australian Basketball who have a love for both games, many of which had played both at a high level. There are few things more popular in Melbourne than AFL and Basketball and they were Colin’s two favourite sports, which is how Jodie came up with the idea for the game – as a tribute to her father.

Our referees were Daniel Battye and Raoul Kirsten and we were also privelaged to have the Melbourne United Cheerleders keeping us entertained. All of these wonderful people generously donated their time and skills for the event and we cannot thank them enough.

Grant Harrison, Nathan Sewell and their team at Knox Basketball Association and the State Basketball Centre were incredibly generous and supportive, donating the venue and all their staff for the night. We could not have done it without them. Our two major sponsors – that our teams were named after – were Triangle Logistics Management (TLM) and Max International – the Gluatathione Company. We are incredibly grateful to these companies and all of our sponsors for their generous contributions which made this event the success it was. Coca Cola Amatil donated water & softdrinks, Carlton United Breweries donated beer & ciders and Levantine Hill donated some beautiful wine, Sumo Salad donated the delicious salads & wraps and Costco donated $100 which went towards sandwiches and rolls. Rumbles Paleo provided some of their best selling healthy snacks and treats and Nature’s Organics provided beautiful skincare products for our players gifts bags. For the full list of sponsors you can check out our sponsors page here.

To our coaches Darren Smith, Kevin Goorjian, Simon Mitchell and Todd Goldstein (a last minute fill-in for Jason Smith who was originally set to coach) – and to all of our players (you can see the full list of players here) we sincerely thank you for giving up your time and travelling to the SBC for this event and supporting this very important cause. You are literally the reason that people bought tickets and came to watch – without you there is no game and we can’t raise any money so THANK YOU! From your feedback we trust that you had a fantastic time and look forward to working with you again for our future games.

Two very important and key people that helped behind the scenes were Ricky Baldwin and David Madigan – a very special thank you to both of you for your support and your tireless work in making this game happen.

To the long list of selfless volunteers who gave up their whole day to set up, clean up and work throughout the event – we say the biggest thank you. We appreciate everything you did more than you could know – you made this event possible.

Chicks for Charity – you girls are amazing. Thank you for partnering with Wudzy Inc. and working with us to help get the funds raised, into the hands of the cancer patients who depserately need it. Thank you for all your hard work at the game – you guys are seasoned pros at this and we sincerely appreciate everything you did and do for us. We look forward to working with you all again on future events.

Finally, to our Wudzy Committe members – Narelle Williams, Emma Paolucci, Darren Smith, Sue Barron and Janene Ferguson – who worked for months preparing all the finer details of the event, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your time, commitment and support of my crazy idea and being there to help in ayway possible to do whatever I asked. You are all amazing, kind and generous people and I can’t wait to do it all again with you this year so we can raise more money for this important cause – in Wudzy’s name.

Here’s to a bigger and better game this year – #Wudzy2020 #Biggerandbetter

For the love of the game.