This digital campaign was a season long initiative from November 2025 to May 2026 that highlighted Face-Off games between the brothers with the goal of raising funds for critical breast cancer research in honour of their mom, Janis. Turning their on-ice rivalry into an opportunity to rally fans and supporters, the goal was to fundraise as much as possible for critical breast cancer research.
In July 2009, current NHL players, Nick and Marcus Foligno lost their mother, Janis, to breast cancer – a loss that forever changed their family. Since then, the brothers have dedicated themselves to advancing cancer research and care through starting the Janis Foligno Foundation in their hometown of Sudbury, Ontario in 2010. Nick and Marcus are among the 14 Hockey Fights Cancer Champions using their platforms to raise awareness and engage the community. It was this past NHL season that the brothers wanted to push their efforts even further and put their sibling rivalry to good use through Hockey Fights Cancer and this is how the Foligno Face-Off came to life for Nick and Marcus.
Founded in 1998, Hockey Fights Cancer is a joint initiative of the NHL and NHLPA. The HFC initiative powered by the V Foundation for Cancer Research presented by AstraZeneca has raised more than $44 million since its inception. HFC unites the hockey community through storytelling and events to fundraise for cancer research.
For this campaign, Nick and Marcus used their platforms to support cancer patients and their families while also paying tribute to their mom, Janis Foligno, who tragically passed after her battle with breast cancer in July of 2009. The Foligno Face-Off launched in November 2025 in partnership with NHLPA, NHL and V Foundation for Cancer Research through Hockey Fights Cancer, and originally highlighted match ups between the Minnesota Wild and Chicago Blackhawks, where Nick served as captain at the time. Logos and branding were initially developed to incorporate for the campaign. The first match up was on November 26th, 2025, where fans were encouraged to donate $17, both brother’s jersey number, or any amount they could by picking either Team Marcus or Team Nick to support breast cancer research.
The unique competition format choosing between Team Nick and Marcus on the donation page helped encourage more donations and entice fun off-ice competition between the brothers, teammates and fans around the game. Throughout the season, both brothers helped with the promotion, showcasing their personalities trying to sway fans to pick their team through creating various pieces of content. Both brothers are known for having amazing personalities and that was one of the key factors as to why this campaign was so successful. Both jumped at the opportunity to honour their mother in any unique way leading to many fun videos like the mini office series videos that were submitted, family videos, challenge after lost matches and more. It wouldn’t have been such a success without their personal element to the campaign. Marcus was also very active on his Instagram page promoting himself and collaborating on content which helped him keep the lead for all the Face-Off.
On March 6, 2026, Nick was traded to the Wild, joining Marcus and the team. While the move altered the original structure of the Foligno Face-Off, it didn’t change the brothers’ plans to their commitment supporting cancer research and care. At the time it was a challenge to figure out the best way to continue promoting the ‘Face-Off’ portion of the campaign, but it was the best-case scenario in the end and the HFC group got creative in finding ways that worked and reformatting the tagline to “IF YOU CAN’T BEAT ‘EM, JOIN ‘EM!”. There were also limited touchpoints in person with the brothers, which caused some minor obstacles, but we worked around it and took advantage of time in person to cover the content needed for the campaign. In the last half of the Foligno Face-Off, Nick’s jersey number changed to $71 which was also used to try and encourage fans to continue donating in a final boost for Nick and the initiative.
This campaign was unique in that it was so personal for the brothers, and they owned it, creating some meaningful content. Alongside Nick and Marcus, their sisters Cara and Lisa, and their father and former NHL player, Mike Foligno, all participated in the promotion of this campaign in honour of Janis.
Wrapping up on Mother’s Day, the Foligno Face-Off ended up raising more than $200,000 to fund a new breast cancer research grant in Minnesota in honour of Janis Foligno. Every direct donation is supporting groundbreaking breast cancer research through the V Foundation at leading institutions across North America, helping drive discoveries, advancing care and saving lives.
With the success of the campaign, Nick and Marcus have set the standard for players to become involved with Hockey Fights Cancer and using their platform for something positive. It was unique to have such great player involvement and dedication to the level that the Foligno brothers showcased, as it helped showcase the personality for hockey players and gained national media coverage. The content posted for this campaign was overall the highest performing content for Hockey Fights Cancer last season, generating over 1 million impressions and 500k total reach for NHLPA X, Instagram TikTok, and Facebook pages.
