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By Lloyd Mackey
THE DATE was April 28, 2009. It was the last chapel of the season for the
Victoria Salmon Kings. Their chaplain, Dave Steingard, had just finished
telling the half dozen or so players about some of his life experiences, and
tying his story into some biblical concepts.
Then, unexpectedly, he felt “an explosion in the back of my head.” Speaking to BCCN, he added: “I said a closing prayer, walked back to my church parking lot. My pastor was
there. He said I was not looking well, and took me to the hospital. I had a
brain hemorrhage.”
The downside was that Steingard spent the next eight days in the hospital. But
there was a spiritual upside, as well. During his hospital stay, one of the
players dropped by. He brought with him “a hockey stick that all the guys had autographed. And he told me: ‘I am praying for you.’ He was seeing me in my need,” the chaplain recalled, with some emotion.
Steingard is not a pastor by profession, but a property developer. He is also
one of the lay leaders of Glad Tidings Church, a strong Victoria inner city
congregation located less than a block from the Save On Foods Memorial Centre
where the Salmon Kings have their home ice.
He and his family have been a part of Glad Tidings since they moved from
Saskatoon to Victoria a couple of decades ago. The aforementioned pastor, who
took him to the hospital, was Ron Mikalski. “He is my backup,” the chaplain said.
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Steingard was interested in hockey from his early years. He played forward in
university hockey in Saskatoon.
He actually tried out for the Phoenix Roadrunners, of the old Western Hockey
Association. But a seemingly untimely broken shoulder sidelined further
progress along a hockey career path.
But, as a serious Christian believer, he found kindred interests in Hockey
Ministries International (HMI) – which, as its name denotes, carries out a range of Christian support ministries
in the hockey world, all the way from the junior level to the National Hockey
League.
Don Richmond, who runs HMI’s B.C. operation from Kelowna, recruited Steingard for the chaplaincy after
seeing him in a morale-building volunteer role with the ministry for some
years. HMI has 30 chaplaincies in B.C., at various levels of play
Steingard’s first step was to build a relationship with the Salmon Kings’ coaches. And he built his presence with the players in part by paying attention
to the online advice HMI offers to the chaplains they recruit.
He said there are two rules in relating to the young players: “Don’t ask them questions – and don’t ask them to pray.”
September 2009
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