Vilardi who is generally hard on himself when it comes to his play on the ice, was a little more relaxed when describing what the Clancy nomination means to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty cool. Honoured to get nominated for that. I think us, as a team and an organization, we do a great job. There\u2019s a lot of guys in here that spend a lot of their time with different charities and different things with the Jets,\u201d said Vilardi.<\/p>\n
\u201cP11 (Project 11) and the WJHA (Winnipeg Jets Hockey Academy). I think it\u2019s more credit to the Jets, honestly, because they make it so easy for us. So, yeah, it\u2019s cool and something I\u2019m proud of and something I\u2019m going to keep doing as long as I\u2019m here, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
From speaking about mental health and helping out on the ice with the Jets Hockey Academy, the 26-year-old works with Suzie Friesen, who is the Director for Educational Programs with the True North Youth Foundation.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s someone that I reach out to throughout the season. I\u2019ll be like \u2018Hey, I come back from this road trip, tomorrow\u2019s a day off, where do you want me? Are you going to a school? If you want, I\u2019ll come with you.\u201d And she replies right away,\u201d said Vilardi.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s someone that has helped me a lot and made it easy for me, and then obviously just the WJHA, the program, even my girlfriend Megan volunteering there for the last few years. It\u2019s very easy-going and it\u2019s fun to go on the ice and see the kids smile.\u201d<\/p>\n
The nominee with the most votes will be named the winner of the King Clancy Memorial Trophy and receive a $25,000 donation to benefit a charity or charities of his choice. The winner will also be eligible to elect that his Club receive a grant from the NHL, up to $20,000, to help organize a special activation related to his humanitarian cause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vilardi who is generally hard on himself when it comes to his play on the ice, was a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5121],"tags":[5,78,4,77,18,5288],"class_list":{"0":"post-550531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-winnipeg-jets","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-jets","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-winnipeg","12":"tag-winnipeg-jets","13":"tag-winnipegjets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116387736778770669","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}