Behind-the-scenes: Leafs team up with SickKids for holiday video

The Toronto Maple Leafs spent their day off doing good deeds on Monday.

Our CityNews crew joined players, both past and present, for a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of the next video in the “Sick Kids Vs.” series.

Players Ron Hainsey, Leo Komarov, Patrick Marleau, Curtis McElhinney, Nikita Zaitsev, as well as Coach Mike Babcock and former Leaf Wendel Clark traded their hockey gloves for oven mitts. With their powers and some flour combined, they baked a giant cookie for Santa.

Last year, the “Sick Kids vs. missing home” campaign had the cooking staff at the hospital prepping a massive cookie for Santa and placing it on the helipad for his arrival on Christmas.

This year, the video with the Leafs embraces the same concept. It pays tribute to the children who won’t be able to leave the hospital for the holidays, and are hoping Santa won’t forget them.

This latest installment is part of ongoing efforts by the Sick Children’s Hospital Foundation to raise money for a new building. Its goal is to raise $1.3 billion for the hospital by 2022. Sick Kids says it’s the largest fundraising effort in Canadian history.

After the shoot, the team put away their hairnets and made a special visit to a few of the patients. The Maple Leafs first started visiting the hospital in the 1920’s and it’s become an annual tradition for the team.

SickKids spends about $2.3 million a year on advertising, which is about 1.6 per cent of its expected annual revenue. The hospital says it sees exponential returns on advertising during big campaigns like this one.

SickKids also has a mobile vehicle making its way across the GTA selling milk and cookies. They are asking for a minimum $10 donation in exchange for the sweet treats. All proceeds will go to the campaign. You can track whether the truck will be near you by clicking on “LOCATE TRUCK NOW” on the map below.

“For context on how marketing drives fundraising results, last year when we launched the new ‘SickKids VS’ brand platform, we saw the best ever fundraising results during October – December 2016 of $57.9 million,” Sick Kids Hospital spokesperson Sandra Chiovitti said.

“We saw that online donations more than doubled and the average donation value online also increased by 63 per cent.”

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