HBO's Entourage Star Kevin Connolly and NY Islander's Mike Bossy Spread Holiday Cheer to Long Island's Local Kids!

It's that time of year-Kevin Connolly and Mike Bossy Spread Holiday Cheer!

Mark Herrmann

December 23, 2007

• 'Twas the week before Christmas
  
  And all through Modell's,
  
  Ran young shoppers with Isles cards,

        What a story that tells! '

The reason I wanted to do this was I wanted to actually see the kids shop," Mike Bossy said a little after 8 Tuesday morning in the sporting goods store in East Meadow. "I wanted to see their faces. "It's working out great," said the Hall of Fame right wing, who used to entertain thousands at Nassau Coliseum, a few blocks down Hempstead Turnpike, but who this day was determined and happy to be a spectator.  

Bossy conceived an Islanders-sponsored shopping spree, raised about $80,000 through donations in a month and let the United Way choose the recipients.

 So one week before Christmas morning, he and some donors and fellow team officials watched as 251 children excitedly packed the store, each with a $250 gift card. 

 They filled shopping bags with sneakers (Nike, of course), jackets, snowboards, Yankees paraphernalia, even an Islanders shirt or two. "A lot of [Rick] DiPietro jerseys, no Bossy jerseys," Bossy said, laughing.

"This is why people who give, give," said Christopher Hahn, president of the United Way of Long Island, standing near the front door. "You see smiling kids who otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to have this kind of holiday."

 On this morning, giving became contagious, as it always does.

TV star Kevin Connolly of the HBO hit "Entourage," a lifelong Islanders fan who came by to help out, noticed children were holding lists of presents to be bought for sisters, brothers, parents, uncles. "And it wasn't just one kid," Connolly said. "It was a common theme."

And speaking of common themes, was this just an Islanders story?   

 Not on your life.  

The Rangers, for instance, always show heart (to use a hockey term), such as collecting and distributing 700 coats so far this season. Chris Drury and Marc Staal personally delivered 50 to the Children's Aid Society this past week.

There still are reasons to believe in sports - believe it or not. Believe, despite a year's soiled grab bag of human growth hormone, a referee's betting slips, dogfights, sideline spying, nightclub gunplay, and sexual harassment. There are wins and losses, and then there is something deeper, especially right here in our backyard.

Carlos Delgado did not have such a great year for the Mets. But he had enough extra-base hits to raise $160,000 from sponsors who keep track of doubles, triples and homers. The money all goes to children - mostly parentless, neglected or abused children - in Puerto Rico. Delgado regularly shows up at orphanages to check up and say hi. 

Believe.  

You might have read that the Knicks aren't setting the world on fire this season.

 That didn't stop Jared Jeffries and Jerome James from joining John Starks in handing out toys at Hackensack University Medical Center last week. It hasn't taken the bloom off Jamal Crawford's Giving Tree.

Believe in the Marty Lyons Foundation, established by the former Jets lineman, which had its holiday party this past week and which writes thousands of little unpublicized stories. Such as the time it paid airfare for a 14-year-old leukemia patient who wanted to go from Georgia to Indiana to see relatives and get baptized before she died.

People snicker about the 50-and-over Champions Tour and Commerce Bank Classic, but many kids have a better shot at reaching a ripe old age thanks to the $4 million the Long Island tournament has raised for Schneider Children's Hospital.

 How about the time the Rangers planned an entire weekend in New York for a 15-year-old fan who had endured seven brain surgeries? He got a personal tour of the Garden from Mark Messier. We could go on and on. This stuff isn't all that rare, thank goodness. As much time as the sports world spends in the mud, it still is as strong as anything at raising funds, and spirits.

Believe it.

"Sports can definitely motivate people to do good," Hahn said. "Having Mike Bossy doing fund-raising is a really big benefit for these kids. Nobody is not going to pick up the phone when Mike Bossy is on the other end of it, especially if they live on Long Island and were alive in the 1980s."

 So anyone who was there Tuesday got a kick out of seeing students from Drexel Elementary in Westbury use part of their $250 to buy something - gloves, Dora the Explorer boots - for someone they had never met. "You have the privilege of doing it because of being privileged to start off with," Bossy said. "Plus, you're always able to be surrounded by people who feel the same way."

Bossy, the Hall of Famer, was the one who went out and bought doughnuts for the other volunteers, which Connolly thought was intensely cool. The actor, standing near the checkout line, was asked if any of the children there idolize him from his (rather risqué) HBO show. He said, "They better not."

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