After the second period of their Stadium Series<\/a> game against the Boston Bruins, the Lightning brought out Rob Higgins, CEO of Athletics at the University of South Florida, as its “Community Hero.”<\/a> A cancer survivor himself, Higgins was presented with a $100,000 check earmarked for various cancer charities, including Coop’s Catch for Kids.<\/p>\n But \u2014 emcee P.K. Subban explained \u2014 Higgins had an opportunity to turn that $100,000 donation into a $500,000 donation. All he had to do was make a nearly impossible shot from the blue line into a tiny, puck-sized hole in the net. That’s a tough feat for anyone, but particularly someone who doesn’t even play hockey.<\/p>\n Not surprisingly, Higgins missed the shot<\/a>.<\/p>\n But wait!\u00a0<\/p>\n Here comes Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield<\/a> accompanied by Rob’s father, Jack Higgins. Jack also happens to be a cancer survivor. Mayfield rattled off a spiel about everyone deserving second chances and then announced that Rob would get to take another shot. This time, it would be for $1 million.<\/p>\n He missed again.<\/p>\n As a consolation, Mayfield changed the $100,000 donation to a $200,000 donation and called it a day. Thanks for playing, Rob.<\/p>\n PK Subban, Rob Higgins, Ronde Barber, Baker Mayfield and Jack Higgins pose with the check for the Stadium Series Community Hero during an intermission in the 2026 NHL Stadium Series game.<\/p>\n (Photo by Christopher Mast\/NHLI via Getty Images)<\/p>\n Of course, $200,000 is no small amount. But dangling a $1-million carrot out there then asking a cancer survivor to take a carnival shot to reach carrot is tone-deaf and a little gross. And then they embarrassed him not once, but twice.<\/p>\n Sorry about that extra $800,000 you missed out on, kids with cancer, you can blame Rob!<\/p>\n Not surprisingly, fans on social media were quick to call out the NHL for the unsavory act.<\/p>\n Rob Higgins, by the way, was very gracious about the whole thing. He posted on X: “A huge THANK YOU to the @TBLightning<\/a> & @NHL<\/a> for this amazing honor & for donating $100k to the following charities: USF Health, USF Stampede for Women, Moffitt, Coaching Love, Coop\u2019s Catch\u2026. Plus another surprise $100k to Moffitt!”<\/p>\n He added: “And with that, my hockey career (which thankfully only lasted two shots) is now officially over!”<\/p>\n Your move, NHL. Cough up the extra $800,000 and make this right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHL managed to take a good cause and wrap it in an uncomfortable gimmick, dangling life-saving charity…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-445176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/display-media-38.png\")
<\/p>\n