Several Ducks alumni teamed up with the Warrior of Life Fund for a charity hockey game in Irvine.
A familiar sight greeted those who remained from watching Ducks training camp earlier in the day. A hulking presence on the ice, dressed head to toe in Anaheim Ducks equipment, skated alongside fellow former NHLers at the 2026 Face Off for Heroes Anaheim at Great Park Ice in Irvine.
Kevin Bieksa played three seasons with the Ducks from 2015 to 2018, entering the coaching and analyst community after his playing career concluded. He is now a regular on the Sportsnet panel alongside the likes of sportscaster Ron MacLean and premier insider Elliotte Friedman. This was Bieksa's third time participating in the Face Off for Heroes event, which is hosted by the Warrior for Life Fund. The event is presented by the NHL in partnership with the Anaheim Ducks Alumni Association and supports Warrior For Life Fund programs serving active-duty service members, veterans and their families.
"I've enjoyed every year," Bieksa said. "The first year, we got a tour of the training facility down in San Diego, which was kind of eye-opening. You hear all these things about, SEALs in the military and how impressive they are. And then when you get to go down there and actually meet them and see how they train and see their mentality. It's even more impressive. It's been cool to hang out with them and pick their brains and listen to them tell some stories and get on the ice. We played for two hours yesterday and I'm telling you, the pace did not slow down. These guys from the start to the finish were just pushing the pace. They love hockey and it's fun to hang around them."
Ducks alumnus Scott Niedermayer participated in the ceremonial puck drop alongside fellow Ducks alum Vitaly Vishnevski and Warrior for Life Fund founder and executive director Ryan Foley. Former Ducks goaltender Guy Hebert was also in attendance. The NHL Alumni team, which included Bieksa and Vishnevski among others, faced off against the Naval Special Warfare team.
Boston Bruins Alumni president Frank Simonetti is the Warrior Fund of Life's Face Off for Heroes Program Manager. He played four seasons with the Bruins in the 80's and was recruited by Bruins legend Johnny Bucyk to become part of the Bruins Alumni program after he retired. Simonetti was introduced to the Warrior of Life Fund through participating Bruins Alumni charity games. Based out of Virginia Beach, Warrior for Life Fund was founded by Foley in 2012.
"They've seen a lot, they've done a lot," Simonetti said of Naval Special Warfare members. "They're getting 'scrambled' is a good way to put it. And they found that getting on the ice kind of clears their mind, relaxes them, makes them sleep better, helps with their PTSD issues. It keeps their bonds of service going when they retire. They can play hockey with their brothers that they deployed with and still feel like they're part of that team. The other thing that Warrior for Life does, much like hockey (is) when you retire from hockey or the military, when you were in, you had schedules, purpose, teams, goals, right? You had people who were guiding you. You retire, you have none of those things. Your support system goes away. And the same for the military guys. So if you have no place to go and no one to turn to, you can really get lost. You can turn to drugs, alcohol, the isolation... there's a pretty high suicide rate when they get isolated like that.
"What the Warrior for Life Fund does is give them a place to go when they retire because we have a community center, we have a performance center, we have a gym, we have the hockey programs. So these guys. when they leave, they can still be with their team. They forge relationships in service and they can keep those relationships when they're out of service, and that helps. The last thing that we've embarked on with Warrior for Life is a traumatic brain injury medical treatment program in Virginia Beach where an operator was diagnosed with a TBI (traumatic brain injury) from home base in Boston. At the Intrepid Center for Excellence, Johns Hopkins, they can come down and get those modalities treated in our facility in one three-hour block. Instead of going here, there, and everywhere, which takes about 15 or 20 hours, we brought the practitioners into our facility so these guys can come in, knock it out in three hours. Come there once a week for 12 weeks and really get improvements in their vestibular therapy, their oculus therapies, trauma therapy. So we're doing all these things for these guys and it's really paying off."
Not only has the Warrior for Life Fund hosting events like the one in Irvine, they've also hosted charity golf tournaments and partnered with the Ducks Alumni program for the Ducks Alumni golf tournament this past May. Warrior for Life Fund is also one of the non-profit organizations that will receive a grant next March as part of the Ducks Community Assist Game. The next Face Off for Heroes event is in October in Tampa.
"We try to bring the events to cities where there's a high military population," Simonetti said. "Interestingly, we went to Montana last year, and people say, 'Why'd you go to Montana?' Well, there's so many retired special operations guys in the Montana area because they want the openness, the freedom. It's a little bit more conservative, so they get out there. So we went (to Montana), they came out of the woodwork, literally, out of the mountains, and they came out to play and to watch and to reconnect with guys they hadn't seen in years. And that was a real eye-opener for us. So you saw the game here, where we have a team of NHL guys playing a team of warriors. We bring in three to four military teams and they draft the NHL alumni to play on their team. And it's really neat because it's competitive and guys are getting after each other. We have a round robin tournament, which makes it a four-hour event versus a one-hour event.
"And the cool thing is a lot of these military guys bring their families. We invite the wives and the kids because when they deploy, they're leaving their families for four, six, eight months. We don't want to take them away from their family for a weekend. So we say, 'Bring your family, make it an event, spend a few extra days. Bond with your family outside of your normal four walls, your military base, your military community'. And what happens there is their families get to meet other families, which is cool. But these guys get to connect with NHL alumni, and then forge relationships, which have continued and started to grow. These guys talk to each other year-round now. Even when they're deployed, they're texting each other back, talking hockey, doing this and that. So really a great community to be part of. When I heard that there was hockey in Virginia Beach––because I'm a Massachusetts guy, hockey everywhere in Massachusetts, New England––I said, 'They play hockey in Virginia Beach?' These elite warriors are using hockey as a therapeutic tool. I had to learn more about it, and they kind of adopted me. I've been working with them since 2017 now. It brings me joy every day I work with them. Happy to be part of the organization."
One element the Warrior for Life Fund provides that Simonetti believes is one of the most important is their support for Gold Star families. A Gold Star family is a family who "has experienced the loss of a loved one–an immediate family member – who died as a result of active-duty military service. Those who die in service to their country leave behind parents, siblings, spouses, children, and extended families. These are recognized as Gold Star families. The title is meant to honor the service member’s ultimate sacrifice while acknowledging their family’s loss, grief, and continued healing."
"We have a lot of gold star families down in Virginia Beach," Simonetti said. "And we invite the wives and the kids and the Gold Star families to come out to skiing on Tuesdays and Thursdays. When we do some of our big games in Boston, we'll invite Gold Star families up to be part of it and just absorb the hockey community up there because there's so much support for Warrior for Life that comes out of New England that when they come out, they get treated like royalty. People respect––respect, I guess, is a tough word––respect the fact that their husbands gave up their lives for this country. And they feel important again, just by being honored. So it's this little thing we do to help them and help them feel connected to the community."
To learn more about the Warrior for Life Fund, visit warriorforlifefund.org.
