The Gospel In The Game Sports Podcast
Conversation and stories about real athletes and the journey thru sport, faith and life.
Connecting athletes, sports families and the church. Build bridges and telling real stories to help repair, build and grow people.
Hosts Dan Dromarsky and Dave Dawson
The Gospel In The Game Sports Podcast
Sport and Faith Collide
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Even in families, individuals and churches there can be conflict and tension that comes with sport. A cost for participating is not always money but can be time away from other commitments.... like church. The cost of missing Sunday service, friendships, family time and even personal interests. For many athletes there is a great struggle with wanting to be an athlete but also a commitment to faith. Is there a balance? Can I do both?
Inspiring conversation about athletes, sport and faith.
Tell us what you think.
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day. This is a long time coming, a long time coming. This is exciting plans in fruition. The gospel in the game.
Speaker 1:Podcast episode one a little bit of a conversation format, digging into a little bit of what what the Lord has laid on your heart and on my heart, and what we've kind of just been building on for years.
Speaker 1:But now we're going to watch and see what the Lord does with it. We've discussed in different formats and with different ideas, and one of the things that we wanted to bring out was a conversation about the subject at hand and that is sport, the gospel and how the two intersect. As we're doing life, we've both been involved in sports and because we've been involved in sports, we've met Christian athletes and we've seen athletes that are curious about the gospel, christian athletes and we've seen athletes that are curious about the gospel, and it's just been evident that there's something to this and there are many obstacles and speed bumps and I could even say roadblocks, and I think part of our conversation is hopefully going to help the listener, wherever they are in life, engage um each other, their church, um their support systems, maybe a little bit differently, and hopefully they're encouraged by it yeah, and an avenue of where faith and sport connect, I think in many ways right.
Speaker 2:So where? Where where somebody is at in their life and how does faith apply to that? How do you, as an athlete or someone involved in sport, apply faith to your life and where does that apply? Where does that intersect? How do the two of them come together? Is there a spot for them? And if there is, and you feel there is, how do you apply them to your life and make you a better person? And not only that impact the way you approach sport as an athlete and and uh, change the ultimately the trajectory of where you are headed in life for the good, and navigating that, uh, that avenue.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and it's. And avenue, I think, is the right description because it's a two-way street where lots of times I think athletes try to think how do I incorporate my faith into my sport?
Speaker 2:And some take the viewpoint of how do I include the sport into my faith football player a number of years ago, and anytime we'd have conversations about his identity, he would say I'm not a Christian athlete, because then that would say that would insinuate that my identity is an athlete I'm an athletic Christian. He was, he would. That's how he would identify himself as to make it 2024 appropriate. But so yeah, not a Christian athlete, but an athletic Christian, making his identity as a Christian but he's athletic rather than being a christian athlete in itself. So that's an, I think, an interesting approach to how you, an athlete, would view his faith journey yeah, for sure, and I think a lot of it is.
Speaker 1:Everyone has a different story, a different journey on on how they became an athlete, but also when they had all of a sudden faith in their life. Some people were raised in Christian homes, others were more adopted in their youth. Others don't know the Lord until later on in life, and so I think that even impacts on how they handle things.
Speaker 2:Some are maybe still searching as well. Yeah, navigating through this journey and wondering how faith applies to being an athlete. And you know there's for sure. I mean you can. You can look at some of the pillars in in faith and sport over the years. You're tim tebow's and guys like that that are very outspoken in faith and and think, okay, can this make me a better athlete? Would that be helpful?
Speaker 2:Because athletes, often they want to apply things to their life which allow them to be more successful. So, what? What is what's the margin? What's the measuring stick? Right? So if I invest in this, does it give me the success that I want? Yeah, right, versus okay. Well, what's my trajectory? Is the point of, you know, applying faith to my life to make me make my results better, so I can win more championships, things like that? Or is there a different avenue? That, if I adopt faith into my life, do I now have a different compass? Do I now have a different margin? Am I not navigating through, looking and going? Oh, it's about championships now. No, it's not about championships anymore. It's about developing people better, making me a better person. It's not about championships anymore. It's about developing people better, making me a better person.
Speaker 1:And that's a really good thing to point out, because I think a lot of times an athlete says, ok, maybe some of the attributes that are associated with faith and God and church, these are good moral attributes in order to put into me as an athlete. It helps me focus, it gives me peace in the evening, athlete, it helps me focus, it gives me peace in the evening. Without getting in depth or having faith. They try to take some of the good things away from it and apply it to their life, almost with the mental health perspective, and I think that can be a good seed that can hopefully flourish later on. But it's important for us to, I think, see it as a seed, not as, oh no, this is a faith thing.
Speaker 1:I never went to church, I can't use any of it, I can't even be curious about it. So I think, as we journey through life, it's good to ask questions, investigate, look into things, and one of the things that we want to do is, as we go deeper in this journey, we want to hear and tell some of those stories how people have come to know Christ, how different people have incorporated their faith into their sport and tell some of those stories, but also, at the same time how did they inquire about? How did it start? Was it a curiosity? Was it a seed planted by someone or something, or did something happen that started that journey?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not all the times and all or nothing investment. Sometimes you think of when you're, you know, adopting a mindset or you're making a career change okay, I need to leave this job, this career, maybe I'm a mechanic and then I'm to go become, you know, a pilot. It said it's a complete, okay, a complete shift, right? So you people might often think, all all right. Well, the journey to becoming a Christian means the absolute end of this and then about face next day, bang, it starts okay and brand new. Often that's a lifelong journey of slowly trying things out and dipping a toe in this and saying that didn't work as much. But yeah, I heard this great principle about going the extra mile and not giving up and, you know, maybe forgiving somebody or reconciling old wounds, like it's a lifelong journey. It often can be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think sometimes people are almost afraid to start even the faith conversation or the God conversation because they think, oh no, now my life's going to change. Or some people think of it and see it and say, okay, if I make a decision of faith, what do I have to give up? Well, hey, you know, this is a process. Yeah, that's good. Things are going to change. Things are going to be different. God's not a genie lamp. All of a sudden you find this genie lamp. My life's going to be changed. Everything's going to be amazing. It's going to be changed. Everything's going to be amazing.
Speaker 2:It's going to be perfect? Yeah, like, if I become a Christian, does that mean I have to stop fighting in hockey? And, you know, does that mean that I can't go for a drink anymore after a game and celebrate and when I got three touchdowns? You know, are those some of the extremes of it? And I think they're good conversations to ask, because there are as much as there is one template, which is the word of God, that says this and this and this. You know, there's stories along with it and Jesus even told stories. Right, you look in the Old Testament, before the time of Christ, there were stories. Right, proverbs are analogies. Right, in Scripture you find lots of analogies where you know God's telling stories. There are other prophets telling stories, jesus telling stories. So everybody's story is intertwined into this faith journey which everybody's on, a journey no one's arrived yet.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think it's important for us to clarify and say we don't mean stories like Hansel and Gretel went into the woods and they found the canning cabinet, but I know exactly what you're saying but analogies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's taking a principle or a truth from that event and that's how stuff was passed on, and I think the important thing to take away from what we want to do one of the many building blocks in what we want to do is help tell some of those stories from people's lives but also, at the same time, create a conversation around it.
Speaker 2:Well, and story often might even be a Christian circle word, right, like, tell me your story. Everyone who's a Christian and has heard that knows. Oh, you mean testimony, right, which is ultimately just a reflection Maybe reflections might be a better word. So when, yeah, you're reading through some scripture, the reflection's given, okay, well, this is let me tell you. It's like this here's an analogy, right, and Jesus would use analogies, like you know, the parable of the talents or things like that. He'd use analogies to describe, ultimately, where you're going. When we talk about stories, we mean reflections, right? So you and I have crossed paths, with a number of athletes and people connected to sport obviously being involved in media. There's a number of athletes and people connected to sport obviously being involved in media. There's a number of people connected to sport. So when I hear talk about stories, I mean reflections, their journey, things like that.
Speaker 1:So analogies and all that together yeah, and and also, it's not just the past, it's also the present yeah, the ever-opening story exactly, and also, what do you hope to see in the future?
Speaker 1:because of where the past has let you and where you're currently at now, understanding that you know what you're unique. You're created in the image of God. God has planned a purpose for you. You're not just there to exist. That's like our very first lesson. It's the beginning, it's creation. It's like you were created for purpose, and one of the things that God wants is to have relation with you through Jesus Christ, but also understanding what the purpose is. What's the purpose? Why are you here? What are you doing? And I think that's going to be great as part of the stories. Purpose why are you here? What are you doing? And I think that's going to be great as part of the stories. Um, just kind of, I guess, start off the very beginning of the conversation. I wanted to talk a little bit about just this, this great gap sometimes that we see um within the church, within relationships that people have with people from, uh, local body of believers you could even call it not just within the church building.
Speaker 1:As an athlete, one of the things that I've seen personally in my life and maybe you want to build off of this is all of a sudden, little Johnny starts off as a young hockey player, six, seven, eight years old. Parents sign him up for hockey. Great, he's always loved the sport, wants to start playing himself. He has players that he looks up to, puts on the skates. All of a sudden, boom, mom and dad get the schedule. Sunday morning they go practice. What do they do Now? All of a sudden? Oh, we usually go to church. Practices are on Sunday morning, not every Sunday morning. It doesn't mean we totally miss church. But now how do we view that as a Christian, as someone who has faith and knows the importance of fellowship? Now, all of a sudden, you come to church and you had missed church and there are going to be people that say where were you? And there's all of a sudden, I don't know how to even describe it.
Speaker 1:There's this feeling almost of guilt where it's like oh man, we keep on missing church because of sport. Do we give up sport? Can we work with the church and still continue to go to church? It's not necessarily a priority thing, because we value both and we know how the importance of both. Can the two live together is more or less where I'm going with this.
Speaker 2:I think the solution is just have your hockey leagues completely change their schedule to not practice on sundays that's right.
Speaker 2:Those listening are like, yeah, that's a perfect, you have the answer to the problem. And I think that myself not having kids, not knowing what that scenario is like, but from the broadcast side of it, a lot of events I do are on Sundays. I miss a lot of church. So I think anybody listening can put themselves in the shoes of both, as an athlete who misses church on Sunday, maybe as a parent who has a kid in sport who is missing church on Sunday, as maybe somebody who travels and works on Sunday and I'm missing church. Where is the intersecting neutral ground for that? And yes, maybe from that aspect, if you go back to church, and where you, or on the other aspect of you, just miss that fulfillment in your life, like you wake up, okay, well, I miss church. Now for the third Sunday in a row, I miss the community, I miss the friends, I miss the family.
Speaker 2:How do I continue to navigate that journey? It's a tough one and I think you know, honestly, that might be one of the biggest I don't want to use the term issue but stumbling block when it comes to faith Games on Sunday. You know, do you change church completely? Find a church that does Wednesday night services or Saturday Sure. But that's missing. The point of where we're trying to connect on is having the spot where faith and your sport can still connect, and you know navigating through that and it's I can speak from personally. You know, look at the last 18 months of my career 75 of church I missed from work. Yeah right, it was long, it was a lot. I wasn't playing sports. I don have kids, but just knowing that I'm on the road and being away from it, that's a hard journey.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's almost interesting because you put sport in it. Take someone who works away. Often someone works way up north, or they're working way somewhere in the world, or they have to travel for business and they end up missing church. It doesn't seem like that odd, odd, but all of a sudden you say well, you missed it to drive, you're only like 10 kilometers away from your church and you chose the rink instead of going to the church.
Speaker 1:It's almost seen differently sure but I, what you're speaking of made me think of, even like the professional athlete. You think of how often an athlete is on the road, how long they're gone, for they're going in a great distance. How do they incorporate that in?
Speaker 2:and I think that's some of the questions that we're probably going to ask yeah, and you know there's I I can think of different ways that you can navigate through that when it comes to, you know, having a routine that just becomes normal. And then you get back to church and you think, oh, this is a different routine now, because athletes are about routine. Right, if every Sunday you're missing church, well, okay, maybe do I get up early, do I read scripture, do I go for a run, do I play music, whatever. But I mean getting back to the root cause of that, that, how do you intersect the two? What's the answer? Yeah, because there's a lot of athletes that are constantly playing on sundays and, you know, maybe you want to be involved in a church but you don't have the capacity to. What's the answer to that?
Speaker 1:I don't know well, I think, hopefully, we're going to discuss, we're going to find some, maybe some tactics. We're going to find some ways that people can include, whether it's fellowship or finding time with other Christians. You know as much as everyone, I guess, has a different viewpoint in regards to the last several years. One of the things it has done is made more people familiar with doing things online. Sure, more people familiar with doing things online, sure, and I, I still know groups of churches that have small groups, um, even for people that are older seniors that have now discovered technology, okay, this is a way that we can get together and fellowship, even though it's in front of a screen but they're not physically able to come to a building.
Speaker 2:And one of the things I've honestly seen in my life over the last few years, when you know you talk about some of the changes that have happened in our world. I've seen my circles, superficial friends, but you know you talk about inner circle, medium circle, outer circle, far greater side on the outer circle, medium circle, where the inner circle you had, you know quite a few, it's different now, where I have a far greater inner circle and on the outer circle it's not as vast anymore.
Speaker 1:Okay, you're hitting on something. During that time period, I was spending time conversing with a dad who was in the States, lower 48. His son was 17, 18 years old, playing high level hockey away from home. There was some tension, there were some struggles, son was having just boy, just a tough road a bit, and we had this conversation about how do we engage our athletes and keep them motivated and encouraged and other things, when they can't play the sport, and so I almost see it as similar to the fact of being away from church and taking away their sport.
Speaker 1:Either way, you're taking away something, and one of the things that he mentioned was one of his goals was making his circle smaller, like on purpose, and where you just talked about how your circle became smaller, naturally, and one of the things that he encouraged me with was making your circle smaller so that you were surrounded by people that encouraged you. You really found the encouragers, because when you find the encouragers that are close to you, they actually help make the further reaching relationship stronger. Right, and it all of a sudden made me aware of the support system that I actually had. It's not that I didn't know existed, I just didn't know how important they were, yeah, and it kind of made me see, wow, these people are really close to me and they're really encouraging me.
Speaker 2:And before it was just it seemed like in little ways, but those little ways were actually big because they were in my tighter knit circle yeah, and I think, just to clarify, maybe anyone listening to this you know is hearing saying oh, are you encouraging people to not go to church and play sport?
Speaker 2:obviously not if you don't have the ability to navigate your schedule and the resources. Plug, plug into a church, be part of the community. You know there's it's. I think there's something extra special about being in a church service around the body, getting an opportunity to worship, to network, to just be together in a group. That is the ultimate goal of what you want to do, but that what we are discussing is in scenarios where you might not have the option or the ability to do that. What does reality look like?
Speaker 1:And the opposite side of that coin. All of a sudden, you go to church. Maybe you're not the athlete, maybe you have athletes that come to your church. And now, maybe this is an opportunity to say, okay, you know what, instead of just seeing them as someone who misses church, maybe I'm going to start engaging them, asking questions about their sports. I remember years ago we had an elderly gentleman at our church my son missing the odd Sunday with church and he said to him he said hey, you missed church last Sunday. You mentioned you were going to a hockey game. How did that go? How was your game? And then my son started talking to him. He necessarily wouldn't necessarily have bridged that conversation before, but it was a way to start engagement. And then that conversation carried on further where, weeks down the road, he knew my son was going away and he said hey, I know you're going to be away and you're going to miss church. I hope you have a great game. I can't wait to hear how it goes when you get back.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:And my son found great encouragement about that. He said, wow, like people actually care that I love this sport and they're starting to see me as a missionary to those that are on my team and those that are around me and an ambassador for the gospel within my team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think that that's a great point, because you don't want to isolate the person for being away and make them feel like an outsider, cause I think, at any point in time, a number of us had maybe felt like an outsider. 2020 might be a good example. Right, there are different spots where you feel like an insider or an outsider. That's really the extreme. You walked into a building. Do I belong here or not? That's that was the extreme. On one day to the other, yeah, there was no middle ground. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:So, and then, when it comes to an athlete, for sure you might come into a church and go well, where are the other athletes? Let's say like there's no athletes here? Yeah, yeah, if you're like an outsider, and then am I judged for not being here? Or you might come to a spot where, yeah, the common place is there was a lot of transient people, and how do you navigate those conversations and that, yes, they are just as valuable as somebody who's there one out of every four or five, six weeks Because you don't know what's going on behind the scenes. You don't know the amount of time they might be spending in the locker room with the guy next to them. You know who's going through some difficult times. And wow, how do you stay so full of joy when you blew your knee out again? Yeah, like I'm good friends with a professional athlete who's gone through, I think, three you know acl knee injuries over the last couple of years and yet still has abundant joy and has looked at one of these guys as, wow, like you're recovering again.
Speaker 1:Well, and even for me, like you just mentioned that, I didn't know that I I severed my acl years ago and I saw how it took the wind out of my sails. Like just physically unbelievable. I couldn't imagine being a professional athlete and like this is your livelihood and then all of a sudden you can't participate in it. Like I was upset, I couldn't like continue coaching for a year because I had to be off skates. Like imagine all of a sudden a pro athlete, that that'd be like you or I losing our driver's license or going legally blind or something.
Speaker 2:Transmission fails on you or something like that.
Speaker 1:Something like that.
Speaker 2:So, but I want to touch on a point that you made a few moments ago. When you talk about calling right Cause I think that's where you know you look at when athletes have a purpose, they have a goal right. They set something in mind, whether it's a weekly goal, a yearly goal. I just talked to an athlete just recently who said his goal for this season is X amount of interceptions on the year. That's his goal. Okay, so he's going to push for that personal goal, team goal, likely win a championship, this, this, this right.
Speaker 2:So athletes often identify with what their goals are. So you look at, maybe an athletic Christian, christian athlete. Their goal is they want to represent the Lord at the highest amount. What does that mean? Take care of their body, have a great attitude, whatever those goals are. When you think of purpose, you know and calling calling is a Christianese word for purpose essentially, what's your purpose? To accomplish something, you know. How does that change their trajectory then of how you view life? So you have that guy sitting beside you in the locker who blew his knee out. Well, if his goal is, I need to get a thousand yards this year, but I'm gonna get 750 and I blew my knee out. Well then, what? What's next? I didn't meet my goal. Now my career is over. Where am I going?
Speaker 2:yeah right where maybe you have intersect faith in that. That changes the conversation.
Speaker 1:Well, and all of a sudden, that faith hopefully sees the athlete saying, hey, listen, I'm a, I'm a. Take the body example I'm an arm, I'm really strong arm. Now, all of a sudden, the person at church, that little old lady at church, isn't there in the locker room. And how do we connect and engage both so that the athlete says, hey, there's this little old lady back at church that's praying for me, that I give updates to on how I'm doing in my sport and in my faith, and where my headspace is, at how to encourage me, how to pray for me.
Speaker 1:She can't even come to games, but at the same time, now, all of a sudden, you have, maybe when she was young, she was a volleyball player and she was great at it, and now she's physically not able to do even some of the simplest of tasks, but she still wants to be useful for God. And so how can we connect the two in order to say, hey, listen, you can pray for this young man. That's the greatest power on earth, you can do for him. And you're not there as a coach, you're not there, even in the stands, but to know that there's someone as a support system for you and that cares about you. That's really about being the church, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love the point you made, the concept about identifying an athlete as a missionary yeah, right, rather than that person who's just missing from church. You know different so much. Maybe someone who's working, right, if you're, maybe you're, you know, in pipeline, you're gone for a long time, it's, it's one thing, but this is different because an athlete, specifically, is we're zoning in on that Is that based on your skill sets? Because the concept of the podcast is the gospel in the game, in the game of sport. What does the gospel look like in the game of sport?
Speaker 2:And I love that idea of almost activating some of your athletes as missionaries, right, and looking at them like that. Okay, well, let's check in with this. You know junior hockey player who's now going to be heading into a 62-game season. He might be a church wanted of every eight weeks. Let's check in on him and find out what chapel is like. Who are some of the guys he's praying for, what are some of the conversations like? You know how's his mental health going when he's by himself on the road or he's got? You know he or she has, you know, hotel mates that maybe have different habits than they do that are annoying. Yeah, how do you navigate? How do we pray for them?
Speaker 1:Well, and how do we now get even the off season? For some, every different season is someone's off season. We often think of it. It's not the season all the time.
Speaker 2:So right now, every sport is yeah, the off season football on season.
Speaker 1:It's not like we're like, oh, these six months we have all the sports, then these six months we don't have any sports. It's like, okay, well, even in the off season. Now how do you prepare yourself? What habits do you create, even in your off season and training-wise, but investing in the Word of God, finding that Christian community, even you know, keeping lines of communication open with teammates, former teammates, not just superficial surface-level conversations, but really trying to dig deeper into building relationships. And you know, as I move forward in time, and we all do, I think we start to realize some of the impact we've had on people previously.
Speaker 1:And during this downtime. It's often a time of reflection and you start thinking about those teammates that you had three, four, five, six years ago. And how are they doing? Did I build enough in order to communicate with them? Would they even remember me? How do I keep those relationships open as a Christian, maybe to an unchristian teammate, but also to Christian teammates, to encourage one another, because the Bible tells us encourage one another and build each other up as part of the role that we have as a team.
Speaker 2:And so I think that's one of the other things and probably for another conversation is how do we now take other fellow believers and make them teammates? Reciprocation you're getting in the value of a relationship, okay, well, I know that. You know this person is my, in my circle because we text back, we get together. Therefore, my impact has been positive. This person who I haven't talked to in three years, who maybe I played on a line with or was in a batting order with or, you know, was on the opposite end of the line from me, you know, on on the line of scrimmage. I don't know if I made a positive impact on their life.
Speaker 1:That's right. Maybe that's why he's ghosting me, yeah.
Speaker 2:But you never know, who you may have impacted positively, even people you lined up against, that's right.
Speaker 2:Right, let's not forget, as athletes and maybe those who don't play sport, follow sport, understand sport when you see two teams going toe-to-toe, let's use the Stanley Cup finals for an example. Right, panthers and Oilers. You know, series gets Panthers Rangers, series gets vicious. These guys must hate each other. What happens at the end of that series? Brotherhood hugs and handshakes and things like that an mma fight. Guys beat the junk out of each other for five rounds and then hug after that hug afterwards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a bond in sport. There's something special, so, please, you know players you played against.
Speaker 1:You might not know the impact you made in their life and the other side of it is you brought up a good point with the combative nature of things and then their mutual respect for each other. Even guys that are enemies, often there's that mutual respect as an athlete, as a competitor, where they're like they fight each other. Oh, I really hate that guy's guts and part of that was the mental driven in order to prepare for the battle that they were engaged in. But the other side of it is is that, no, I have a respect for him because he's doing the same thing I'm doing, trying to be the best at that. I got to respect that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And when you look at how respect works, there are rules in sport. Right, in MMA, there's three or four really important rules to protect the individual. If a guy's knocked out cold and bleeding everywhere, you're not going to see another guy go stand over top of his body and yeah, I told you, or that's not allowed. Well, maybe in the underground fighting that you're a part of, but um well, hockey you look at the world of hockey, that's right. Right, you know, sure, cross checks happen, sure, high sticks happen, but nobody would take a weapon and repeatedly smack a guy's head, no, yeah you know you might get a cross check up in the teeth if you're.
Speaker 2:you know you're a guy who plays for the leafs just kidding, but um, but you have the ultimate respect amongst competitors, right, and that goes with. As you talked about the drive of being an athlete, you're programmed to look at the jersey and go I want to conquer, I want to beat you. Line up against this guy. You know, maybe you might be a guy lining up against. You know, I think a number of years ago, you know, when the Jets played the Montreal Canadiens you know Mark Shifley talked about it I was looking forward to lining up against David Desjardins because he's one of the best shutdown centers out there. I couldn't wait to go toe-to-toe with him. I'm sure he looks at him and goes. I hate that guy, but it's the hate of an athlete. You hate the athletic side of him. You don't hate the person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think another podcast is going to come out of this, because I think it's important too, as a Christian playing sport, that all of a sudden we take that bar and put it on a whole different level. Or now, all of a sudden we're the good Samaritan, we're the one that's supposed to look out for people's well-being and do anything and competing with them. How do you even set an example with that? I think back even playing hockey as a young adult and running my mouth, and all of a sudden I remember looking up in the stands and a family member's there and I'm like oh wait, do I want to be seen in this light? You know I need to handle things differently.
Speaker 1:And uh, going back to the dressing room and one of my teammates being like you seem to have changed your language a little bit on the ice how come you, like, went up to the guy and told him you're going to clean his clock like that's a phrase of the 1960s versus saying something more colorful to yeah, yeah, so, and I think part of it is like you talk about having that mutual respect as athletes.
Speaker 1:How do we now display our faith as part of what we're doing? And I don't think this is only for the athlete, I don't think this podcast is only for the athlete. It's for the people all around the athlete, it's for the coach, it's for the parent, it's for the person in the support system, the person that just likes watching wrestling on TV, helping understand a little bit of the headspace behind athletes, behind faith, hopefully discovering some of the relationships that are built in it. Maybe someone's just even curious about God or curious about going to church, and maybe this podcast will help just give a little bit of light, shed a little bit of light on the perspective of what it's like.
Speaker 2:And some of my curiosities that I want to hear about. When we talk about unpacking this podcast over the week after week after week and episode after episode, you think of different. You know concepts of okay, so you know. If you're in the penalty box and you take a penalty, are you dishonoring god? Right? If you get angry? Someone you know spears you any unmentionables and you get angry? Oh no, are you dishonoring god by being angry? You know you're a coach on the bench. It's two to 30 seconds left in a hockey game. Someone throws a pizza up the middle, goes right up onto the bar, you lose in overtime or whatever, and he's disappointed or frustrated. Are you dishonoring God by being disappointed or frustrated? Things like that you know. I have this one story in mind that I heard from a chaplain a number of years ago who's involved with a professional hockey team team and he told me he's a very familiar athlete. I won't mention his name because I don't the details of it. I don't have all the exact specifics but.
Speaker 2:I remember hearing the way he described it when he was you know it's. It was montreal, canadians, boston bruins. Years ago, like way, way back I think it was early 80s, and this individual got into a fight with one of the really well-known and this guy wasn't a big bruiser, he just happened to be a skilled player who. There was a tussle that happened and there was this boston room player who was well known to be one of the enforcers in the league and the two of them ended up on top of each other and this um individual had the bruiser down and out, like he was on top of him and he was going to land like six or seven knockup blows. He could have put them on conscious and made everybody aware like ha ha, I told you so, but he had. He had described. When I heard him say this he helped, he like he let up. So you got one punch and the guy had his helmet off, he was on the ice and he let up.
Speaker 2:So then all the articles were out there in the newspaper saying well, why did you let up? You got this individual on your back, you're going to knock him out cold. What was the point of that? And he wondered in his mind well, okay, well, that's all. What was the negative press associated with that? And remember him saying there was somebody on the bus who pulled him aside after and said or maybe, or maybe, maybe it was. A news article came out after that it said because of this individual's faith, this is the mercy that he he held up on knocking this guy out cold. So everything and all the other newspapers were soft week, but then he saw an article that said because he was a man of faith, he held up and showed this guy mercy. And I'll never forget that, because when you think about how an athlete applies, where does your faith intersect in sport? To me, that's a great example of it yeah, I love that, I love that.
Speaker 1:Well, we could talk forever we could continue on with another episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a number of years in the making. We finally got it, and it's uh glad to be alongside you, my friend yeah, and let's see what the Lord has in store. By the way, that's Dan Jomarski, I'm Dave Dawson. Thanks for listening to Gospel in the Gate, episode 1.
