Chiefs improve their team spirit

With an audience of nearly a dozen 16- to 20-year-old talented hockey players listening intently, former Spokane Chiefs brawler Danny Green shares his testimony.

“I’m just a drunken hockey player and if God can do this with me, he can do it with anyone,” said Green, a “hell-raiser” from the senior amateur era of the early 1980s. Green has been clean and sober for 15 years and is a pastor at Community Bible Chapel.

“There are a lot of people in this town who would be shaking their heads at that if you told them,” said Green of his changed ways.

Green was speaking to the group of Chiefs players as a guest at one of the team’s bi-weekly chapel sessions. The voluntary meetings are a way for interested Spokane players to put their demanding lives in perspective.

“With the schedules that these kids have and the time requirements that are on a major-junior hockey player, along with their other commitments, I am really amazed at the attendance that we get at chapel,” said Todd Ulrich, a former Chiefs player who runs the program on a volunteer basis.

Ulrich, who is also a youth hockey coach and father, said he wants to help current players avoid the temptations of the junior hockey lifestyle. So, for the past three years he has taken over the job of planting seeds in young men and watching the program grow.

“It’s an informal way for the kids to grow spiritually,” said Ulrich. “It’s informal in that we meet at the Arena and I’m not a pastor. I’m just a guy that his representative of Hockey Ministries International whose life has been turned upside-down by God. The other thing I have in common with these guys is that I’m a hockey player.”

Spokane’s program is one of several sponsored by HMI, an organization which helps Western Hockey League and collegiate teams put together faith groups. Former Chiefs assistant coach Jamie Huscroft helped get Spokane’s program off the ground a few years ago, and turned it over the Ulrich.

“The Chiefs organization was real supportive of it, but we wanted to make sure that the players didn’t feel any pressure to attend, so as a coach I stepped away from it once it got going,” said Huscroft, who left Spokane’s staff last spring to manage an ice rink in Renton, Wash.

During its existence, there have been many moments when the values of the program came to fruition. But none has been more profound than during the events of Nov. 23, 2002. That was the night Chiefs forward Darren Lefebvre collapsed during a game and had to be brought back to life with a defibrillator in the Arena.

The incident was a wake-up call to the athletic young men who take much for granted, especially their health. Former Chiefs forward Tim Krymusa, a pastor’s son, gathered his teammates in the locker room and they began praying for Lefebvre as the fallen player was revived.

“The first time I ever got called by Al to address the team was the Saturday after that Friday night game,” said Ulrich. “The first thing I told these guys is that this happened in front of me for a reason, and if I’m on this team, I’m asking myself questions (like): Are you ready to meet your Maker? Because nobody knows the day or the time.”

The program has had its effects in more subtle, but no less dramatic ways. One former player who was deeply moved by a chapel program was former Chiefs standout defenseman Kurt Sauer, now a happily married husband and father who plays with the National Hockey League’s Anaheim Mighty Ducks.

After hearing a taped testimony by well-known Canadian hockey player Paul Henderson at a chapel program, Sauer took Ulrich aside a couple of years ago with tears streaming down his face.

“He said, I could never be like Jesus,” said Ulrich. “I said, ‘You know what, Kurt, join the club, because none of us are ever going to be like Jesus. But it doesn’t stop us from trying.’ “

The primary goal of the program is to create leaders who can be examples for players still trying to find their way, as much of the mission is accomplished one-on-one. The players in the program are careful not to pressure teammates.

Captain Jevon Desautels is a longtime member of the group.

“It’s really a good opportunity to get some spiritual food,” said Desautels, who is quick to credit Ulrich. “He’s put so much time and effort into what he’s done here. Everything he’s done here for us has been amazing.”

And how does Desautels square his job as an enforcer with being a Christian?

“Actually, I talked to Todd about that one time,” said Desautels. “I asked if it’s wrong that I want to go on the ice and punch a guy in the face. He said, ‘It’s a gift I’ve been given – it’s a part of the game – that’s all it is, is on ice.’ At the end of the day, it’s all good.”

Or, as Huscroft puts it, “On the ice it is a different thing. You have to do your job. But at the end of the day, as long as you know who the real guy in charge is, that’s what matters.”