Stephanie Smith has long sought to impact the largely unchurched hockey community for Christ through her role as a sports medicine trainer. Now she and her husband, Ross, have taken that calling a step further as owners of the Twin Cities Northern Lights, a new nonprofit team in the Minnesota Junior Hockey League.
Their goal: to bridge the cultural gulf between evangelical Christians and the hockey community — and ultimately reach players, their families and fans with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“The ministry opportunity is huge,” said Smith, who serves as youth/young adult evangelism consultant in sports for the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention and a North American Mission Board missionary.
“Because sport schedules often conflict with traditional church times, many people in the skating world have not had an opportunity to connect with real-life Christians who live their faith,” she said. “We want to show the Christian community that there is this wonderful group of people right at their back door who are not affiliated with any church but are religiously attending arena functions on weekends. We want to help facilitate the meeting of these two worlds.”
Smith has had a heart for the hockey community since 1993, when she first encountered hockey players as a certified athletic trainer. She found ways to minister to players as sports medicine coordinator for a local private school and a nonprofit team affiliated with the Minnesota Junior Hockey League — a competitive development league designed for players through age 21.
But when the general manager of her junior-league team stepped down for health reasons this spring, the Smiths were given the opportunity of taking on its ownership and management. “We decided this would be one of the ways we could really expand the ministry because we would have operating control over what happens at each home game,” Smith said.
Starting anew
Stephanie remains as athletic trainer, although now in an unpaid capacity. Ross — a part-time youth leader and former track coach with a degree in business/finance — assumed the role of general manager. They rebuilt the organization from scratch, creating a new name reflective of their Christian mission and an all-Christian staff.
“We chose the name Northern Lights because our staff wants to share the Light of the World as we develop the young men on our team and to create a bridge between the Christian and hockey communities,” she said.
With the start of their first season this fall, they have involved local churches and Christians in staffing positions at the Northern Lights’ home games, whether through running game operations, the concessions stands, working the penalty box or even singing the national anthem. Stephanie also hopes to further involve the hockey players and church groups in partner service projects.
Through those connections, the Smiths are helping Christians gain a better understanding of how to more effectively minister to hockey fans and families in their own communities and to use that model for reaching other sport groups.
“We want to allow these people who love, breathe and eat hockey to talk about what they love; then after listening, they will ask us about what we love the most — and that’s our Father,” Stephanie Smith said.
Staying true
The games themselves also will be opportunities for evangelism, including testimonies from Christians affiliated with hockey, contemporary Christian music and the availability of free hockey-theme tracts at the concession stands.
The Smiths also seek prayer support from Christians across the country, because they won’t use the top three typical methods for fund raising — “charitable gambling,” alcohol sales and large “tryout” camps for the team that traditionally serve as revenue generators.
They intentionally limited the camp this year to provide quality training only for players who had a reasonable chance of winning a place on the team’s roster.
“Everyone thought it was weird to hear a Christian-based organization was taking over,” player Kelley Kranz said. “They didn’t know what to expect and thought we’d have mandatory church attendance. My parents had high hopes and figured it would be good. But our performance tells the story. Hopefully they all see we’re for real now.” (BP)
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