- Thursday night marks another Green Bay preseason tradition: the Bishop’s Charities Game. It was first played in 1961 after Vince Lombardi was approached by the Diocese of Green Bay about playing a charitable contest in Green Bay (the Shrine contest was a fixture in Milwaukee).
- The series enjoys its 51st contest this year and has raised more than $3.5 million.
- For more than 30 years, the church handled much of the game’s business-related tasks, including game program and advertising sales, using a network of volunteers covering 14 Northeastern Wisconsin counties. The Packers assumed many of those tasks in 1994.
- The Packers are 26-23-1 all-time in the series. They will be playing Kansas City for the fourth time in the series, with the other meetings coming in 1978, 1979 and 1992.
- Green Bay has won two straight games in the series, including a 59-24 victory over Indianapolis in 2010. Prior to that, the Packers had lost six consecutive Bishop’s Charities contests. That six-game losing streak (2003-08) came on the heels of a 12-game winning streak (1991-2002) in the series.
Last year was the 50th game in the series.
The Compass put together a Facebook event for the game.
4 comments:
That's awesome! I didn't know that the Green Bay Packers and the Diocese of Green Bay had an agreement to help one another like that.
Teresa, it was started by Vince Lombardi who actually considered becoming a priest in his youth. He attended daily Mass(and had several players come with him) while coaching the Packers.
Is that Bishop Ricken in photo with Aaron Rodgers?
Yep, the one and only!
Post a Comment