United Cerebral Palsy’s first-ever “Hoops for Hope” charity basketball game, pitting representatives of the Bangor media against members of the Husson College faculty, will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 8.

The game will be the prelim to the 7:30 p.m. Husson men’s game with Nyack College of New York.

All proceeds from the first contest will go directly to UCP of Northeastern Maine, with the admission fee covering both games.

Jack Gifford of the Bangor Daily News and Husson men’s assistant coach Warren Caruso are coordinating the event.

Media members who will don uniforms for the worthy cause include Barbara Barr of WCSH-TV, who played college ball at Boston University; WABI-TV’s “sportsguy” and dad-to-be Tim Throckmorton; and WABI weatherman Chris Ewing, who will be doing his broadcast live from courtside.

Television personalities will also include Scott McKay of Cablevision; sportscaster Ron Lisnet of WVII-TV, and MPBN’s Bernie Rosetti, who has been playing on the amateur circuit for years.

Radio personalities include WKSQ’s Stu Marckoon, WWMJ’s Fred Miller, WQCB’s Bob Duschesne, WYOU’s Steve McKay, Dave Cooper of WWFX, WHSN’s Paul Cleary, and Tyler Potter of WZON.

Joe McLaughlin, an assistant sports editor for the NEWS, joins the team with player-coach Marshall Frankel and a certain 5-foot-2 female NEWS sports columnist who will serve as the assistant coach.

Gifford said this contest is something he has wanted to put together for a long time and he felt this year, with the sagging economy, would be an appropriate time.

“We’ve scheduled several different fund-raisers to coincide with our UCP Telethon,” he said of UCP Super Week which leads up to the telethon on WVII-TV Jan. 18-19. Gifford will be master of ceremonies for both the “Hoops for Hope” and the telethon, which he will co-host with Barbara Cyr.

“I just thought bringing in the media for something like this would be a lot of fun,” Gifford said. “I contacted every outlet and had only one refusal. The cooperation has been great.

“It should be an evening filled with fun and frivolity,” Gifford said. “We’re still waiting to hear from a certain tall weatherman, but we hope he’ll be able to join us. The 6 p.m. start does make it a little difficult, however.”

Since the Husson student body will be on break at that time, Gifford said, there will be plenty of seats. He is hoping a lot of people willthere will be plenty of seats. He is hoping a lot of people will turn out to support the project and cheer for their media favorites. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.