Post Game Report Former NHLers embark on new 'road trips' for God. by Randy Franz Ron Duguay: Still Flying     Ron Duguay was flying down the ice. As always, his hair sailed behind, just like in his NHL prime when those long locks made women swoon and pug-nosed opponents seethe. This felt to him like one of those days — his skating was smooth, the puck rode effortlessly on his stick, and his reactions were sharp.     It was the first day of training camp for the Tampa Bay Lightning in 1992. Duguay, out of the NHL for three years, was trying to make a comeback. He went back to his hotel room after a full day of drills satisfied that his plan was unfolding just as he had scripted.     “I felt great,” he says. “I was in really good shape.”     On the second day, the script went haywire. During a scrimmage, Duguay hopped onto the ice for a routine shift and took a hard check. His right thumb burned. It was dislocated. Nonetheless, Duguay skated on, but before his shift ended, he took another hard bump and slightly separated his left shoulder. For a player who was rarely injured during a 12-year NHL career, two injuries on one shift were mind-boggling.     “I never get hurt,” he thought. “What’s going on?”     The injuries wouldn’t have derailed a young star on the rise. But an aging veteran trying to come out of retirement? The damage was enough to keep him off the ice and out of the minds of team officials selecting a squad. Duguay’s chances of making the team disappeared.     “Everything I had been wanting to do and was thinking about for months had been taken away,” Duguay says.     Duguay had received Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour several years earlier, led to the Lord by his then-girlfriend (now his wife) Kim Alexis, the former supermodel. But he says he was “dragging his feet” on actually living the life of a dedicated Christian in his retirement.     “I really thought I should keep on playing,” he says. “I was thinking, ‘I can be better doing this on my own.’ ”     That’s when the injuries hit. Before he had a chance to land a job, his NHL playing career was officially over. Now what to do? The Lightning, seizing an opportunity to keep a marquee hockey name, put Duguay on the radio as a colour commentator for their games. He hated it. As part of the job, he attended practices, where he longed to be on the ice. During games, he burned with frustration at not being able to play at that level anymore.     However, the radio and those practices helped Duguay in a way he couldn’t imagine. While driving to a practice one day in Tampa, he heard a sermon over a Christian radio station.     “The message was, “Stop trying to do it yourself and hand your life over to God,’” Duguay says. “I said, ‘Yeah, that’s it! That’s it!’ That’s when I gave myself over to Him. I was raising my hand out the window of the car, just holding it up there and keeping one hand on the wheel.     “Since then, I’ve seen that if you’re focused on God, He will take care of you. He’ll just line things up, whether it’s a job or an opportunity to serve Him in some capacity. But you have to make the commitment to Him.”     Today, Duguay organizes and plays in benefit hockey games that feature former NHL players — himself included — and celebrities. He partnered with Robin Wyss, a hospital fundraising executive in Vancouver, to put on five games in 1999 and 2000, and is trying to organize a series of monthly events in conjunction with the alumni division of the NHL Players Association. Duguay and Wyss say one of their goals is to give a portion of the proceeds to Hockey Ministries International (HMI), a group that runs summer youth camps and team chapels for NHL and minor league teams.     “I learned I don’t want to attempt anything without God behind it,” Duguay says.     Revival can start anywhere. Even in the heart of a one-time hockey playboy.         Mike Gartner: Sudden Death     Mike Gartner’s professional hockey career began in 1978 as a 19-year-old boy with the Cincinnati Stingers of the World Hockey Association. Scoring 27 goals, he was runner-up for Rookie of the Year to another teenager — Wayne Gretzky.     The speedy Gartner possessed a long, powerful skating stride and a booming slapshot, attributes that made him the first player selected by the Washington Capitals in the 1979 NHL draft.     His outstanding skating (at age 36 he won the NHL’s fastest skater competition) and incredible scoring consistency (17 times he scored more than 30 goals) propelled him to a stellar 19 season NHL career with Washington, Minnesota, Toronto, Phoenix, and the New York Rangers. Gartner retired in 1998 after scoring 708 regular season goals, fifth-best in NHL history, behind only Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, Marcel Dionne and Phil Esposito.     Less than a year after retiring as a player, Gartner took a full-time job with the NHLPA. It allows him to oversee the union’s licensing and charity departments. Perhaps he will hook up with Ron Duguay and help sponsor the alumni benefit circuit he and Wyss are proposing. “They’re looking at projects, and they’re behind us,” Duguay says.     Gartner’s influence could be pivotal. He became a Christian in 1981 after noticing that making lots of money, living in a fancy home and reaching success in his job did not fulfill him. A teammate, Jean Pronovost, invited him to a Bible study.     “I knew there was life after death,” Gartner said in an HMI Publications article. “But I never really thought about the fact that there is a heaven and a hell, and we have to make a decision that will determine where we spend eternity. One day on an airplane, Jean asked me, ‘Mike, if this plane went down and you died right now, would you go to heaven or hell?’ I had to say that I didn’t know for sure.     “He showed me from the Bible that I was a sinner, separated from God. The only way to know God was through Jesus Christ. Jesus came to earth, died for my sins, and rose again from the dead. I could either accept Him or reject Him. It was up to me. I certainly didn’t want to go to hell. And I knew there was something missing in my life.     “In a hotel room in the middle of that road trip, I got on my knees and said, ‘Lord, if You’re real, come into my life right now and change me.’ Almost immediately, I had a feeling of relief, and of expectation.”     Today, he shares his experience through speaking engagements and volunteering at youth hockey camps. He tells how he knows that God is in control. “He has a plan for our lives, whether it’s being traded, as I was four times, or struggling through the retirement decision. Knowing there was a plan, I always felt that peace that the Bible says transcends all understanding.”         Laurie Boshman: 100% Effort     Several Christians who once graced NHL rinks are involved in off-ice issues today. Alex Pirus, Dean Prentiss, Bill Butters and Laurie Boschman all work full-time on the HMI staff. Boschman, a gritty two-way forward who played in the NHL from 1979-93, is the Ottawa and Eastern Ontario director of HMI for the Montreal-based organization.     Boschman, who played 73 games with the Edmonton Oilers but spent most of his career with the Winnipeg Jets, feels the biggest play he made came after a game in his second year with the Toronto Maple Leafs. He asked teammate Ron Ellis why he had such a consistency to his life through all of the ups and downs, wins and losses.     “He had tremendous peace,” says Boschman.     Ellis told him that he had a relationship with Jesus Christ, and that he let God’s Word in the Bible guide how he lived every day. A short time later, Ellis invited Boschman to attend a team chapel service conducted on Sundays during the season when they were in town.     “I went one Sunday,” Boschman recalls, “and I accepted the Lord right there.”     Today, Boschman coordinates the chapel program in the NHL for HMI. During the 1999-2000 season, eight NHL teams — a record number — have allowed regular chapel programs for their players and coaches. A number of minor leagues also are becoming increasingly open to team chapels, Boschman says.     While Boschman says that reactions to the program from NHL teams’ have been “been guarded, for the most part,” he’s excited about the positive response he’s seen.     “When I was playing, I don’t know if anything was consistently going on. On our team, about all I could do was ask the coach at Christmas and Easter if he’d mind if we had a chapel, and HMI would get a speaker for us. We did it at a hotel once, had a big breakfast in a ballroom. One time, we did it outside the dressing room.”     Boschman feels that Christian players in the League can have a positive influence on others and can help to promote the chapel program by the way they live.     “The league is still made up mostly (about 60 percent) of Canadians, who have a very conservative background and are not largely a church-going nation. A lot of them don’t know what [being a Christian] entails. In management, there is the perception that it will take away players’ aggressiveness,” says Boschman.     “If your teammates know you’re a believer, they ask you lots of questions. You remember the problems with Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker? I had a lot of guys coming to me: ‘What’s the Bible say about that, Bosch?’ Even though it was mocking, it was a great opportunity to share Scripture with them. There were a lot of those times. A guy would get to thinking about a subject and he’d ask me, ‘What does the Bible say about death?’ Or, ‘What does the Bible say about marriage?’ Or other things. They were good opportunities.”     On the ice Laurie Boschman was a always a tenacious worker. Now he’s doing it off the ice — for Christ. [LLN-Online] [Adopt-a-Block] [Newsbriefs][Event Calendar] [Lifestyles] [Juke Box] [Cover to Cover] [Movieguide][Casting the Net] [Viewpoints] [General Info] [Rates & Sizes][Marketplace/Classifieds] [Volunteer Ops] [Writing Guidelines] [Contact Us] [Subscribe][Archives][Good News] [About Us][Links]