It's been almost 25 years since the Cleveland Crunch won their first of three championships.

That alone is a good reason to celebrate. Mix in a couple of great causes, and you have an event that should be a heck of a lot of fun.

Former Crunch standouts Hector Marinaro and Otto Orf are partnering with The Max Cure Foundation on a 25th anniversary celebration that will be held Friday, April 26 at Rubber City Sports at Goodyear Hall in Akron. The highlight of the night will be a reunion game that Marinaro said would pit the 1994 Crunch — who won the National Professional Soccer League title — against "everybody else." The latter group will include former members of the Crunch who weren't on the '94 club, plus former players for the Force — the Crunch's indoor soccer predecessors — and other members of Cleveland's pro soccer past.

Tickets, which Marinaro said are already selling well, start at $30 and are available here. Proceeds will benefit The Max Cure Foundation and Orf's HandsOnSports Foundation. Orf's Cleveland-based foundation aims to provide positive environments, education and opportunities for at-risk youth through soccer.

Max Cure executive director Jonathan Eric Agin, meanwhile, is a former soccer player of Marinaro's at John Carroll University. Agin left his career as an attorney to join the fight against pediatric cancer after his daughter, Alexis, lost her life to the disease.

"I am so thrilled to be working to be working with players from the 1994 team and other alumni," Agin said in a news release about the event. "Growing up in Cleveland, I spent countless hours with my family attending Cleveland Force and then Crunch games. I remember the energy before the games as the lights turned down during player introductions. It was electric."

Marinaro said he's been discussing the possibility of a 1994 Crunch reunion with Orf for years.

"With the 25-year anniversary of it coming up, we kinda said if we were gonna do this, let's do this for a good cause," the former forward said.

The event will be held one day before the 25th anniversary of the Crunch's first championship. On April 27, 1994, the Crunch defeated the St. Louis Ambush 17-15 in double overtime on a goal by Marinaro. The game was played before a crowd of 11,162 at the Cleveland State Convocation Center.

"I remember playing in the game and being exhausted because we were in double overtime," Marinaro said. "When I scored that goal, I just ran around like crazy. I couldn't believe it. It was my first championship, and I had been a professional for like 10 years already. It was an incredible night."

The Crunch also won NPSL titles in 1996 and '99. In an eight-season span from 1993 to 2000, Marinaro won six MVP awards and seven scoring championships. Teammate Zoran Karic was the league MVP in 1994. That year, Karic also won the scoring title — the only season in that stretch in which Marinaro didn't tally the most points.

"For me, it was an incredible time," Marinaro told Crain's. "We won the championship on April 27 of '94. I got married on June 3 of '94. My son (Jesse) was born in '96, and we won a championship in '96. My daughter (Janice) was born in '98, and we won a championship in '99. Zoran, Otto and I were just on fire. We were scoring goals like crazy, winning championships — it was just an awesome time."

In the news release, Orf, a former goalkeeper, said, "We're inviting all players from the 1993-94 team, as well as guys who played for the Cleveland Force, Cobras and other Crunch squads. It's going to be fun."

The response, Marinaro said, has been great. Several sponsors are on board, and they're looking for more.

"It should be a fun night," said Marinaro, professional indoor soccer's all-time scoring leader. "I'm sure we're going need to a lot of extra bodies."

You can follow me on Twitter for sports information and analysis, and you should read this 2016 feature we wrote on the Force, whose creative player introductions played a part in what has since become the norm in the NBA.