Team Hope's Dean Mikalauskas skates past posters of encouragement as some of the forty players involved in the Hockey Marathon for Kids skate while trying to set a new Guinness World Record for the longest hockey game ever played at a rink in Chestermere, Alta., Tuesday, May 15, 2012. The players who have been playing since May 6 need to keep going until Wednesday, May 16, at 6pm to set a new world record of 250 hours.
Amateur hockey players in southern Alberta were nearing the end Wednesday of an 11-day marathon game to make it into the Guinness World Record book.
Forty men in Chestermere, just east of Calgary, have rotated shifts on the ice since May 6 and were to reach their goal at 6 p.m.
If they make it, they will have played for 246 hours, making it the longest hockey game ever played.
The men were playing through exhaustion and pain — one player had a broken ankle.
The players are trying to raise $1.5 million for the Alberta Children's Hospital.
One of the players is Lyall Marshall, whose six-year-old daughter, Diamond, captured hearts across the country last summer when she darted out to greet the Duchess of Cambridge on a royal tour stop in Calgary.