How much of your NHL career do you use in your sermons?
“In hockey, growing up … when I first started, the only reason I made my first team is because my old man was the coach and I guess you can’t cut your own kid. But I was just always a grinder then. So I’m just like, ‘You know what? I’m just going to keep grinding and grinding.’ I remember my old man told me, ‘You’re the worst skater, you kept falling down, but then you always got back up again.’ And so, I think for me, even jumping into the ministry, playing pro sports, hockey in particular, gave me the grinding gear where I’m like, ‘OK, I’m going to figure this out.’ It’s going to be ugly, you’re going to fall down, screw up a lot, but then you just stay with it, and then you get all those reps, and then it becomes second nature. So, that was probably my journey heading into the pastoring. And then there’s so many incredible stories and experiences we get to do being in the NHL, and so many characters that it’s given me a lifetime’s worth of great, captivating illustrations and stuff like that.”
Besides Keith Jones, are there other players that you talk about?
“I remember in Hartford, we just had no identity. We weren’t a scoring team. We weren’t physical. And then we made a [move] for a big winger, Stu Grimson, The Grim Reaper. There’s a verse of the Bible, it says, ‘If God is for you, who can be against you?’ I just switched that to, ‘If Stu is for you, no one can be against you.’ We all were tougher, we were bigger, stronger. And then another one I put in the book, I was in Atlanta, and there’s this young kid, he wound up playing for a while, but he was a rookie then, Darcy Hordichuk. He’s not a big guy; he’s like 6-foot. And [Bob Probert] was with Chicago and they were kind of working us. We were down, losing in our home building. You could tell the fans were getting [angry]. And Darcy challenges the champ, center ice, the gloves come off, and he starts taking it a little bit, but then he starts really giving it. Our bench was all on our feet, everyone standing up, like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is happening.’ It was like all the momentum switched. In a similar way for me in my faith, we’re coming up on Easter and for us, there was a time when humanity through sin, we were taking it. And then one man came and died on the cross and rose on the third day, and everything changed, all the momentum changed. That would be another story that I would translate that way.”
How did you end up becoming team chaplain for the New York Jets?
“I was pastoring a church on the west side of Manhattan, and one morning this enormous guy came in. He’s like 6-foot-5, just a huge, yoked guy. And I’m like, ‘If you can bench press three plates, I’m going to come talk to you.’ I’m just drawn to those guys. So, I’m chatting him up and he wouldn’t tell me what he did. After the service, he must have enjoyed it, because he hooked up with me afterwards, and he’s like, ‘Hey, I play for the Jets. My name is Kenyon Coleman’ — big defensive lineman — and Kenyon says, ‘You should come be our chaplain.’ And I’m like, ‘Whatever,’ but I gave him my card. Sure enough, I got a call the next day and they asked if I wanted to try out to be the chaplain. I’m like, ‘Try out? How does that work?’ It was literally, like, “American Idol” for preachers. You had to go in, preach in front of the guys, and then they would vote. It was crazy, but I wound up getting the gig. So, it’s been a blast.”
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
