© 2025 Calgary Stampeders. All rights reserved.
By Max Campbell
Stampeders.com
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more committed supporter of PinkPower than Stamps receivers coach Pete Costanza.
Calgary’s much-anticipated home showdown against the Edmonton Eskimos on Saturday evening will mark the team’s annual PinkPower game. Since the 2008 season, the Calgary Stampeder Football Club and the Stampeders Foundation have raised awareness and generated funds for the battle against women’s cancers with at one designated game each October. Over $750,000 has been donated by the Stamps organization to the Canadian Cancer Society throughout the past seven years and all eight fellow CFL teams have since embraced the league-wide CFL PINK program.
This weekend’s pivotal matchup against the rival Esks means even more for the New York native, considering he has witnessed multiple relatives suffer through this horrific illness, most recently his sister in 2007.
“You never want your younger sister – or anyone in your family or friends – to have that,” said the assistant in his eighth season with the Red and White. “We’ve had cancer in our family. My mom had lung cancer and then a brain tumor, my father had cancer and then my sister had breast cancer. It was tough to see her go through treatment, especially when there’s nothing you can do about it.”
However, after admirable fortitude and the continual support of her elder brother, she is a proud survivor to this day.
“She battled, and knock on wood, she’s cancer-free today, so she’s taken a great turn for the better,” a grateful Costanza offered.
Official PinkPower merchandise will be on sale prior to the upcoming battle for first place at McMahon Stadium, with kickoff scheduled for 5 p.m. Canadian Cancer Society volunteers will be on hand to collect monetary donations and sell Stampeder-branded toques, mittens and scarves to fans for $20 per item (cash only).
However, Costanza himself is refusing to wait until game day to sport his latest pink apparel while sharing his touching story.
“I’ve got my pink on today, and any time I get a chance to run for breast cancer and do a race to raise some money, I do,” explained Costanza, who also worked under current Stamps head coach John Hufnagel back in 1997 for the Arena Football League’s New Jersey Red Dogs. “I think it’s a great charity. If we all give to it, hopefully one day they can find a cure and people won’t have to go through it because it is a vicious, vicious disease.”
The Stamps Store also has some Pink merchandise on sale at the stadium and online with a portion of the proceeds going towards the Canadian Cancer Society.