It's More Than a Hockey Camp: HMI is Impacting Kids Worldwide

HMI Michigan 2014. Since HMI Michigan's first Adrian camp, we've over doubled in size!

In 1977, the first “Christian Athlete Hockey Camp” was held and twenty-seven campers attended in one location. In 2015, thousands of hockey players will attend Hockey Ministries International’s Christian Hockey Camps with locations going from Sweden to Michigan to Alberta to Slovakia.

Hockey Ministries International has grown quite a bit since the ministry began 39 years ago. What began as a professional hockey player by the name of Don Liesemer’s urge to bring his faith and his sport together has blossomed into a ministry that has touched the lives of countless hockey players from the youth level all the way to the professional ranks.

Each camp is a week long and players not only receive world class coaching on the ice, but off the ice as well. Each camper is given a handbook that they fill out in groups, called “huddles”, as well as a “Hockey Player’s New Testament”.

The Hockey Player’s New Testament is the perfect introduction to players who may not have been introduced to the Bible before camp. The book is the New Testament, only with the testimonies of various professional hockey players such as Justin Abdelkader of the Detroit Red Wings, Patrick Eaves of the Dallas Stars, and Hall of Fame goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck. HMI also publishes a book called Toward the Goal, which is an encyclopedia of testimonies from many current and former professional players from across the globe.

I’ve been extremely blessed to be a part of Hockey Ministries International and the HMI Michigan camp that takes place at Adrian College and have felt the impact that HMI has had firsthand.

My younger brother was one of 32 campers at the first Adrian Camp that HMI held back in 2011. My mom began working with HMI a few months later and I worked the 2012 camp with her, which was a few months after I began playing hockey.

I’d watched the camp for the first few days and was in awe, especially because I’d never seen that many girls my age playing hockey in a camp like this, I hadn’t even met girls my age before that played hockey and this camp had five girls! I was only 14 at this time and none of my friends played hockey and it wasn’t the “cool” sport to be playing amongst my homeschooled peers, which made me feel really left out most of the time.

It was Wednesday, the third full day of HMI when my mom, youngest brother, and I went over to see how dinner was going and the group of girls invited me to sit with their group for dinner and they included me in their various conversations until I had to go. That small gesture, which they probably thought nothing of, meant the world to me, I finally got to be included and be around girls who were like me. After I left that night, I knew that I wanted to be apart of the camp the next year.

HMI 2013 rolled around after another season of hockey, but no soon enough in my opinion. I couldn’t wait until camp, I looked forward to it more than anything else that I did that summer.

When I got onto the ice for the first on-ice session, I was a little intimidated. Most of the other players in my group, who were 14-17, played travel hockey, and had most likely skated since they could walk and here I was with only a season and a half of instructional under my belt. I felt way out of my league as we did drill after drill after drill.

By the second on-ice session on Tuesday afternoon, I wasn’t feeling great. Everything hurt, especially my ankle, and I didn’t think I could even begin to keep up anymore. I felt like getting off the ice and not getting back on, but I was too embarrassed to get off the ice. I was trying to hide in the back of the line by the corner, but one of the instructor’s could see that I was struggling, so he came over to me and asked me if I wanted to sit down for a minute. So I sat on the bench with him for a while and he asked me about school, what I wanted to do when I got older, where I wanted to go to college, before another instructor came and stood with us at the bench for the remaining 5 or 10 minutes of on ice.

On the bench with Jim Nill and John Vanbiesbrouck during HMI 2013

Did I mention who those instructors were? They weren’t just any coaches, the first coach was Jim Nill, former NHLer and current GM of the Dallas Stars, and the other was John Vanbiesbrouck, former NHLer, Hall of Famer, and current GM of the Muskegon Lumberjacks. For that one week out of each summer though, these two and more are no longer former pro-athletes, no longer superstars, they’re simply on-ice missionaries of sorts that are trying to lead young hockey players to Jesus. They stay with the campers in the dorms, they eat with us in the college cafeteria, they do everything with us and the players are getting world class coaching along the way.

The three camps I’ve been a part of camp, I’ve met Justin Abdelkader three times, Patrick Eaves twice, and David Booth once, just to name a few. These NHLers take time out of their busy summers to come be apart of our camp, not for their own benefit, but for ours. They come not to be praised and seen as superstars, but to teach us about not only hockey, but their faith as well.

Patrick Eaves spoke at one of our chapels last year, sharing his story with us. Eaves played for Boston College for three seasons before making the jump to the pro ranks with the Bingham Senators of the AHL, the minor league affiliate of the Ottawa Senators, the team that had drafted him 29th overall in the 2003 NHL draft. Eaves spent two and a half seasons with Ottawa before being traded to Carolina, where he played a season and a half. He spent much of his third NHL season with Ottawa and Carolina injured. He spent one full season in Carolina before being traded to Boston after his production dropped that season and was put on the waivers by Boston, where he was picked up by Detroit.

Eaves spent four and a half seasons with Detroit, however, he only played ten games in the 2011-12 season after blocking a slapshot with his jaw and suffered a major concussion, which took him out for the remainder of the season and the first half of the next season. Eaves was traded once again to the Nashville Predators in March of 2014, where he played five games. That offseason, he signed with the Dallas Stars where he just recently signed a one year contract.

But that day that he came to HMI, he was just another on ice instructor, just another on ice missionary teaching kids about God’s love and his own faith. He was personable as well, answering questions after telling his story at chapel, and even chatting with me while we were in line for the shootout at the end of our on ice session.

I wasn’t the greatest skater when I first came to HMI, I’m still not the greatest skater, but nobody ever said a word about my lack of skating ability. In fact, everyone encouraged me every chance that they got.

Just a few of my awesome HMI family members!

It was Wednesday of my first camp, we were doing powerskating, ie: skating on one foot forwards, backwards, and all that impossible stuff. I was the last one to do the backwards one foot drill, I was miles behind everyone else, mostly because I was falling every three tries or so, and as I got closer to the end, everyone stopped and started tapping their sticks on the ice and high fived me when I finally got done. They could’ve been rude, they could all skate circles around me backwards on one foot, but they weren’t. They weren’t rude or impatient, even when I took twice as long to do a drill.

What may be even more impressive than the on ice instruction is the instruction off of the ice. Each group, comprised of seven or eight campers the same age, completes their “handbook” throughout the week with their counselor(s) during set “huddle” times, about three times a day. Not only do we discuss our handbook, but anything else that we want to discuss, anything that’s on our minds or our hearts, we talk about everything. Huddles can be filled with tears, the huddles can be filled with laughter, but they’re always filled with encouragement. When I came to my first HMI, I was going through a hard time because I found myself being excluded from my former group of friends because of my decision to play hockey, when I got there I never could’ve guessed what amazing group of people I would be surrounded by. The second year I went, my self esteem wasn’t the greatest, especially because I didn’t think I could ever catch up to my peers when it came to hockey. When I got to camp, my counselors and fellow campers encouraged me and made me feel so much better about myself. Never in my life have I felt so included, so welcomed, have I been surrounded by so many amazing, encouraging people and I don't think I'll ever be able to thank them enough for being there for me and encouraging me.

"The Broncos", my huddle group from HMI 2014.

As I count down the days to this year’s camp, the fifth ever HMI Michigan camp in Adrian (only 6 more days as I write this on Monday), I have a bittersweet feeling. This is my last year as a camper with HMI, but that doesn’t mean I’m done with camp. Next year, I’ll be back, but as a counselor. I can only hope that I can do as much for the kids in my group as my counselors and the staff of HMI Michigan have done for me, and I hope and pray that I might have as big of an impact on just one camper as everyone at HMI Michigan has had on me.

My counselors, Nick and Brad, and I after HMI 2014, they were my counselors both years of HMI.