Eastern rejuvenation
Overseas tour brings meaning and new perspective to men's hockey team
March 12, 2008
Josh Schweitzer
While most students were up the mountain or visiting family for the spring Reading Break, the Trinity Western University Titans were overseas in Slovakia playing hockey and doing mission work with Athletes in Action.
On the trip, the Titans played five games against different Slovak Division II teams, most of which were stocked with junior and semi-professional players. These teams were highly skilled and boasted impressive skating and puck handling abilities. After each of their games, the Titans hosted the opposing team at a local restaurant and the Titan players shared their faith and spirituality and how God has worked within their lives.
When the boys weren’t on the ice, the team was helping AIA Slovakia make connections with various groups and individuals.
In the first of their hockey games, the Titans were hosted by Bratislava Sport University, and eventually lost a very close game 4-2. They followed it up one night later with a 3-3 tie with Ziar N.H.
It wasn’t until their third game where the purpose of their trip started to evolve. Following an embarrassing 10-0 loss to Brezno, a game which had the hometown Brezno crowd of 500 chanting, “Brezno, Brezno!”, after the hometeam scored their tenth, the Titans thought long and hard about what they were going through. They did a lot of personal and team soul-searching and seemed to reclaim the purpose for the trip. The Titans began to very seriously integrate their faith with the hockey that they were playing. As a result, TWU discovered true team spirit, and won their next two games 6-3 at Lucenec and 7-4 the following evening at Levice.
Overall, TWU’s line of Brett Simmonds, Nathan Higgins from the NCAA’s Wayne State Warriors, and Josh MacKnee led the way for the Titans offensively. Of the 18 goals scored by the team, the line scored 70 per cent of them. Higgins and MacKnee scored six each, while Simmonds added one.
The action away from the rink saw the Titans help three different churches with their youth group ministries, as well as teach English in three different middle and high schools. The team also led worship at two different Slovak churches and played floor hockey and other sports with different groups. The team also toured Vienna, visited castles and historical sites, and made a brief stop at Esztergom, Hungary where the team visited the Esztergom Bascilica – the third largest church in Europe.
Goaltender Evan Menzies, who finished the overseas tour with a team best goals against average of 2.50, reflected on the outcome of his team’s reading break: “The trip allowed us as a group to not only understand what love is, agape love, but to live it out to our teammates, and to the Slovak people. We learned that Christ’s love is truly cross cultural and universal.”
Now you go...
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