"Lord, I don't ask that I should win, but please, please don't let me finish behind Akabusi."
Hockey Priest
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Matt Hoven, Catholic University of America, 2024 ISBN978-0-8132-3787-9
The book tells the story of Father David Bauer (1924-88), a Canadian Roman Catholic priest who played a very significant role in the development of ice hockey in his country. For one man to have the influence on a sport that he had is remarkable; that he had a full time job as a priest while making his contribution all the more remarkable.Picking up a quote from Pius XII, Bauer’s motto was “use technique but let the spirit prevail”. Pius had argued that technique in sport should not be an impediment to the unfolding of spiritual forces. This became a key belief of Bauer that a spiritual understanding of the human being, a person of both body and spirit was essential in the context of the commercialised world of elite sport, which tended to put material concerns above spiritual values. Bauer consistently promoted amateur values against the backdrop of professional demands within the sport. He was a voice offering a larger perspective about the purpose of sport. Essentially he was bringing a Christian influence to the sporting world. Part of this was helping coaches to balance the cultivation of character with the competitive element of sport. He felt driven to make hockey and sport in Canada better for young people and to make players better people as well as better people.
Hoven suggests that “the bulk of Bauer's time in hockey was spent fighting against … hockey's corporatization” and adds “A religious hockey coach may seem like an oxymoron but Bauer’s bold determinedness to breakthrough old school hockey thinking reveals a deeper purpose for Canadian hockey”. He also had to fight his corner within the church where some clergy continued to see sport as incompatible with Christian moral doctrines.
Hockey can be a violent sport and Bauer often took a stand against the violence which had become part of the game.
Most of us who work in sport have experienced someone swearing and the apologizing to us. When someone on the bench said “For Christ's sake…”, Bauer once defused the situation with a : “Now, Now. I do the praying around here”.
Bauer was clearly a remarkable man who “stands out as a coach who has shaped the lives of many Canadians both on and off the rink… a man who preached dignity as a coach”. Or as Bauer himself put it: “I may be a Basilian priest but underneath it I'm a hockey guy”. Matt Hoven has done a great service to us in documenting his life.
My one reservation in writing this review is that I know nothing about Canadian culture and less about Ice Hockey.