Frustrated Islanders fans launched a GoFundMe campaign yesterday to purchase a billboard in Brooklyn, calling for the team’s longtime general manager Garth Snow to be fired. The billboard would read “Snow Must Go,” and the campaign reached its $5,450 goal in less than an hour. Any extra money, the organizers said, would be donated to the cancer charity of Islanders winger Anders Lee.
Only Lee wasn’t looped in on that plan and wrote on Twitter that he does “not feel right accepting money from a movement that I do not agree with.”
The billboard organizers have updated the GoFundMe page to say the donations will now go to the American Cancer Society:
We recently received word via Twitter that Anders Lee will be declining any donation toward his Kancer Jam. While we are disappointed, we respect his decision, and love Anders as a New York Islander.
Without a choice in the matter, we have therefore decided to donate any excess donations to the American Cancer Society. While we understand this was not the initial advertised charity, we hope Islanders fans will understand.
The Islanders have lost four of their last five games, including a 4-1 defeat to the Blue Jackets on Tuesday night, during which fans also called for Snow’s head.
They face fellow division bottom-dwellers tonight against the Rangers.