I am establishing this page to assist Captain Don Jones and his family with past, present and future medical expenses for his wife who is a breast cancer survivor. The cancer treatments Kathy received removed the cancer, however, the aggressive treatments used damaged her lungs and left her requiring a double lung transplant. They have been traveling to Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville for some time now and just recently received the news that she would be added to the active list of donor recipients. They were told it would be a difficult match for her but unexpectedly, they received the call shortly thereafter.

The hospital requires you to be on-site within 24 hours of the call. It also requires that once discharged from the hospital, you must stay centrally located to the hospital for the next three months for all follow-up and rehab visits. Thus, they will be renting an apartment within the hospital guidelines. Insurance does not cover any lodging, meals, travel or out of pocket expenses for these months.

Captain Jones has been invaluable to the City of Knoxville, the Knoxville Coliseum and Auditorium and more importantly to our hockey family. He has served as our security since the beginning of our league and even going back to the Cherokee days. He oversees the safety of everyone in the Zamboni entrance, escorting injured players to the locker room for medical attention, helping referees safely to their cars and keeping overzealous fans from certain bodily injuries while still enjoying interactions with the visiting team. He was the first to jump to action when he rushed to push a flaming tool cart out the back door before the fire could spread thru the building. His unwavering professionalism is recognized by all teams and staff who visit our building. Captain Jones recently retired from KPD but kept his side job with the Ice Bears for the love of the team.

I hope you will join me in supporting Captain Jones and his wife thru her recovery just as he has supported us throughout the history of the Knoxville Ice Bears.

As a show of the wonderful love and support we share throughout our league, I wanted to mention that the very first donations we received last night were from Huntsville Havoc’s bus driver and owners Keith and Becky Jeffries - after they lost the game.