Hockey teams open dressing rooms to Christ.
Players seek spiritual relief from jeers and cheers in the arena
On a recent day at Rexall Place, Ryan Smyth and a handful of his teammates finished practice, showered and made their way from the Edmonton Oilers dressing room to the Gold Club located under the building’s lower bowl. A noisy meeting place on game day, it’s where the Oilers’ faithful gather between periods to share the hockey gospel over sweating glasses of ice-cold beer and lament the team’s fortunes in a shortened — and fast-disappearing — season.
On this day, absent of hockey fans, it became a house of worship, its altar a long wooden bar surrounded by a jumble of tables and chairs. For Smyth and the other men seated around one table, the silence gave them a chance to pray with team chaplain Wayne Land and reflect on their shared love of their saviour Jesus Christ.
It wasn’t a typical church service. There was no singing. No preaching. Just talking. The discussion always circled back to the Bible, to words that reinforced each man’s personal relationship with Jesus. In this city, where hockey is God, it was a rare opportunity to ground themselves in a different kind of religion, to block out the cheers and the jeers.
“My role as chapel leader starts when the ref blows the final whistle and they step off the ice,” says Land, who leads the twice-monthly chapel meetings. “It’s a game, and the game’s over and life carries on — life with your family, life with your spouse, life with your children.
“Relationships are everything. Stuff is just stuff.”
Religious services like these are being held by a growing number of teams across the National Hockey League as a result of the work of Hockey Ministries International. An organization that’s been quietly “serving the spiritual needs” of the hockey world since 1977, it is active in 35 leagues, from junior hockey through to the NHL. Non-denominational chapel programs are one of the core components of HMI’s ministry and continue to grow. The Oilers have had a program for the past two years. The chapels are a player-driven initiative, the goal to support those in the league with a “personal faith perspective.” Attendance is voluntary and involvement is confidential. Participating teams have chaplains assigned to them, a person who acts as a spiritual and emotional resource.
The league is not connected to HMI, but endorses it through occasional emails to coaches and general managers, letting them know it’s there as a resource for players.
Altogether, 18 of the 30 teams in the NHL offer chapel programs to their players, a number that has doubled in five years. God has not always been welcome in hockey dressing rooms, and even now still stands outside the door in some NHL cities.
Metaphorically speaking, of course — chapels are most often conducted in unoccupied spaces at arenas, but never in team dressing rooms.
While other professional sports like baseball, basketball and football embrace religious display — entire NFL teams often kneel at centre field in prayer at the conclusion of games — hockey remains reticent, almost aloof.
Some say that has more to do with the mostly made-inCanada reserved culture of the game and the men who play it. Others say the origins of that reluctance can be traced back to the late Harold Ballard. The curmudgeonly Toronto Maple Leafs’ owner famously singled out then-Leaf centreman Laurie Boschman for what he called his “soft” play in a losing effort against the New York Rangers in Madison Square Gardens in the early ’80s, placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of his Christian beliefs.
“He said I had too much religion, and that he was going to trade me or send me down to the minors,” recalls Boschman, now 52.
It became a national conversation. Ballard’s comments were picked up by newspaper wire services across the country, and the next day Boschman, who was only 20 at the time, found himself facing a sea of tape recorders and TV cameras following practice, forced to defend his religious beliefs. He didn’t back down. “I said I thought his comments were unfair, and that it was because of Mr. Ballard’s ignorance toward Christianity that he would make a statement like that,” recalls Boschman.
Still, in a tough man’s game with an even tougher image, the damage was done. Ballard’s comments lingered and left a lasting legacy that persisted in the league for years.
Boschman, for his part, proved the lie to Ballard’s words, and went on to play in Edmonton, Winnipeg and New Jersey before retiring in 1993 as the captain of the Ottawa Senators.
Today, he’s the Senators’ team chaplain and co-ordinates the chapel programs for the entire NHL.
“We’re pretty low-key about how we go about the business of faith in hockey,” Boschman says. “We understand that some people still have preconceived notions. The bottom line is that the chapel program is player-driven, and the teams who have chapel and who offer it to their players have benefited greatly.”
Barry Melrose is the former head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning and once played with Boschman in Toronto. He says HMI’s low-key approach is slowly but surely making a difference in how the hockey world views Christianity.
“You don’t just knock the door down,” says Melrose, now a hockey analyst with ESPN.
“The coaches and the GMs have to let you in. Sometimes the door’s wide open, and sometimes there’s reluctance. I can tell you this, though, any Christian player I’ve ever known is always the toughest guy on the team and the best teammate on the team.
“A lot of people in the hockey world feel you can’t be a big, tough, physical hockey player and be a Christian, but my history of being around Christians is totally opposite. They’re some of the most fierce competitors there are in the world.”
For his part, Boschman’s busier now than he’s ever been, due in part to a growing number of high-profile players who are vocal — and unapologetic — about their devoutly Christian beliefs.
Nashville Predators centreman Mike Fisher’s profile was raised to celebrity status when he met and then married country music superstar Carrie Underwood.
Fisher was introduced to her through the matchmaking efforts of one of HMI’s chaplains, Tim Burke, with help from Underwood’s bass player.
“They knew we had the same Christian values, and how important that was to both of us in a relationship,” said Fisher, 32, during a recent interview. “That made it more comfortable for us right away, and definitely was a big part of why we were so compatible. We have the same faith and the same beliefs.
“We also have similar stories. Both of us have had ups and downs in our journey and our walk with the Lord.”
Fisher’s faith story is among those included in a book published by HMI that’s now in its second printing. Hockey Player’s New Testament also includes contributions from a number of other players including Eric Staal (Carolina Hurricanes), Shane Doan (Phoenix Coyotes), Dan Hamhuis (Vancouver Canucks), James Reimer (Toronto Maple Leafs), Mike Rupp (Minnesota Wild), Peter Budaj (Montreal Canadiens) and Oilers’ winger Smyth.
Smyth and Fisher, both bornagain Christians, share startlingly similar stories.
Both grew up in two-parent households with strong Christian values; Smyth in Banff, Fisher in Peterborough, Ont. Both attended church regularly and were baptized when they were young. Both played competitive hockey from an early age. Both signed lucrative professional hockey contracts when they were in their teens. Both faced personal and professional challenges that led them to be baptized again as adults.
“I had been through some challenges, and I really felt at that point that it was the right thing to do,” Smyth says of his decision to be baptized again. “It’s like putting your flag up for Jesus Christ.”
Fisher, too, got to a point where he felt he was at a crossroads in his life.
“I don’t have a perfect story,” he says. “I felt I had been given this talent, this ability, and I felt I was wasting it. I needed a wake-up call. I wanted to recommit my life to the Lord.”
Getting baptized again, he says, “changed my perspective.”
Boschman says perspective isn’t always easy to come by for players, who face tremendous pressure, sometimes at a young age. It’s often a case of too much, too soon, and can be overwhelming. There’s the money. The fame. The rockstar adulation. The pressure to perform. The media scrutiny. The fan scrutiny.
“They’re public figures,” says Boschman, “and with that comes a lot of issues.”
Both Smyth and Fisher are comfortable and open about their faith, but they’re careful not to proselytize to teammates.
“You don’t want to shove it down anyone’s throat,” says Smyth, 37. “I mention chapel goings on and then let God do the work. The key for me is to live my faith and live honestly for God.”
Smyth’s favourite verse from the Bible is included in his story in the Hockey Player’s New Testament, and comes from Ephesians 6:13 — “Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”
“We live in a sinful world,” Smyth says when asked to explain its significance.
“There are challenges every day, but if we put on God’s armour we’re protected through His grace and His mercy and His love for us. To me, it’s something that’s very important in my walk with Him.”