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ROYAL OAK — The final Royal Oak police and fire charity hockey game against the Detroit Red Wings Alumni at the John Lindell Ice Arena May 1 was memorable in more ways than one.
Although the Detroit Red Wings Alumni defeated the Royal Oak Police & Fire All-Stars 13-8, the event drew the largest crowd to date — over 400 people — and raised a record sum in one of the most successful events in the charity hockey game’s 10-year history.
After the game, Guns & Hoses co-founders Lt. Patrick Stanton, of the Royal Oak Police Department, and Lt. Tony Cattini, of the Royal Oak Fire Department, presented Lane Kleinglass, 18, of Canton, with a check for $12,906.29 to assist with his ongoing cancer battle and future schooling.
Kleinglass, a graduate of Salem High School in Canton, is rounding out his fight against non-Hodgkin diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system, with victory on the horizon.
Seeking to become a first responder, Kleinglass already graduated from the Schoolcraft College Fire Academy — he utilized a dual enrollment program — and has served as a cadet with the Van Buren Fire Department in Belleville since 2020.
In the fall of 2021, Kleinglass was scheduled to attend EMT and paramedic classes when his lymphoma was discovered. A junior in high school at the time, Kleinglass said his leg hurt to the point that he could not walk on it and an X-ray revealed that his left tibia was broken due to a tumor.
As a result, Kleinglass had to put school on hold in order to undergo multiple rounds of chemotherapy, radiation, scans and other treatments at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. He recently finished treatment and will be starting classes at Schoolcraft College this fall.
Kleinglass said non-Hodgkin diffuse large B-cell lymphoma is more common in older people, but it developed in his body and doctors are still unsure as to why.
“I feel a lot better,” he said. “(The charity hockey game) was really fun. It was definitely exciting and really supportive. It was cool to meet everybody, and I knew some of the guys who were playing for the Fire Department just because they’re our family friends.”
Kleinglass’s father, Seth Kleinglass, served with the Royal Oak Fire Department for eight years and played in the charity hockey game every year before launching his own bicycle business.
“It was a great honor for the men and women of the Royal Oak Police and Fire departments to come together for Lane Kleinglass and his family,” Stanton said. “We are confident Lane will soon beat this cancer, resume his schooling and achieve his goal of joining our first responder family.”
Stanton said he and Cattini decided that this year would be the final installment of the charity hockey game.
“We’re not going anywhere, but we’re starting to get to the tail end of our careers and with everything going on with challenges in our positions, we felt it had been a great run,” Stanton said. “Ten years is a good number to end on. This was the first time changing up the routine by teaming up against the Detroit Red Wings Alumni.”
He said the game was “very exciting,” with many fans in Detroit Red Wings jerseys eager to see the alumni players up close.
“Everybody had a great time,” Stanton said. “To their credit, the (Detroit Red Wings Alumni) were very, very generous with their time and just great players.”
Since 2010, the charity hockey game series has raised more than $83,000 for various charities throughout metro Detroit.
“I’d like to thank everybody who’s been involved in this event over the course of the 10 years, especially the Royal Oak community for all of their support since 2010,” Stanton said.
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