As part of a Put Polio on Ice event in December, Robert Moffatt, now governor of District 7820, made a ceremonial puck drop at a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League game between the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles and the Prince Edward Island Rocket.

In 1984, I took a very peaceable fellow to a National Hockey League game at a sold-out Chicago Stadium, where the Blackhawks were facing their archrivals, the Minnesota North Stars. Games between those teams during the Al Secord-Dino Ciccarelli era tended to be raucous affairs. We were arriving late, so I made a point of explaining the protocol of waiting for a whistle before going to our seats.

He nodded, a bit uncertain, then asked about another point of protocol: “Are you sure they’ll seat us without a beer?”

Today, the culture of professional hockey has changed. Notwithstanding the rioting in Vancouver after this year’s Stanley Cup finals, the old joke “I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out” hasn’t resonated with audiences in decades. Much of the decline in hockey violence has to do with new NHL rules, the merging of players from different countries and cultures into the NHL, and the rise in popularity of international competitions that ban fighting, such as the Olympics.

Now, with the return of an NHL team to Winnipeg after 15 years and the building of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the city – home to Canada’s first Rotary club – will nurture two seemingly incompatible passions of many Canadian Rotarians: hockey and peace.

World Peace Partners

Take David Newman. If you scan his lengthy resumé, you will learn that he is the chair of World Peace Partners, a project of District 5550 (Manitoba; parts of Ontario and Saskatchewan), and that he coached youth hockey during the 1970s and ’80s. “My approach when I was involved in coaching was character development and teamwork,” he says. “When I see hockey doing the opposite, it’s disappointing.” He adds that this year’s Stanley Cup final series between the Canucks and the Boston Bruins “brought things to a lower level – the unnecessary violence, the promotion of rule-breaking, the promotion of hatred of the other team. The way you play the game is more important than winning at all costs. Winning using the right means is real victory – that brings dignity to everyone, not just the team.”

Newman fondly recalls the 1970s heyday of the original Winnipeg Jets in the World Hockey Association, when Bobby Hull and Swedish imports Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson formed the international “hot line.” To him, Jets hockey was about speed, finesse, skill, and hard work. He is confident that the new Jets owners are “committed to honest hockey,” and adds, “I expect that Mark Chipman and David Thomson and the people they’re going to hire will want to build that kind of character, that kind of team.”   

Even so, when it came time to consider the team’s name, it’s doubtful that “Peacekeepers” was on the table. Rotarian hockey fans like Joan MacFarlane, of the Rotary Club of Stratford, Prince Edward Island, know that when Winnipeg’s Dustin Byfuglien separates an opponent from the puck for the first time this season, he won’t be thinking about world peace.

MacFarlane is working to organize a Rotary Fellowship for hockey enthusiasts along with Karin Janzon, of the Rotary Club of Degerfors, Sweden, and Mel Powell, of the Rotary Club of Sherman Oaks Sunset, California, USA. “You can certainly draw parallels between hockey and Rotary,” MacFarlane says. “Like an effective hockey team, Rotary brings together a group of diverse individuals to work together for common goals: peace, the eradication of polio, literacy – the list goes on. We can come from almost anywhere in the world and find fellowship and a common purpose. To me, that is one of the many joys of Rotary, and perhaps its best-kept secret. We need to spread the word, and I think the ice hockey fellowship will help to do that.”

Spreading the word

For the NHL and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, spreading the word doesn’t seem to be a problem. In only 17 minutes, the Winnipeg Jets sold 13,000 season tickets, and as of July, the Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights had raised $125 million. When the museum opens in 2013, Winnipeggers will be able to learn about human rights in the afternoon and watch them being abused in the MTS Centre in the evening. (And the punishment for such abuses may only be two minutes in the penalty box.)

“Beanballs, tackling, elbows, red and yellow cards – there is probably no sport out there that is fully compatible with peace,” Powell says. “The key is controlled aggression, and leaving it on the ice or field. But what is beautiful about hockey, even at its most violent, is that it is the only sport with an unbreakable tradition: the handshakes after a playoff series.”  

Even when hockey is played entirely by the rules, it seems for appropriate to have Bryan Adams belting out “We’re Gonna Win” than Anne Murray crooning “Snowbird.” Although aspects of the game may not be peaceful, hockey can advance the cause of peace in a profound way, says Stephanie Smith. Smith, husband Ross, and their son Caleb form the triumvirate that governs the Twin Cities Northern Lights, a USA Hockey Junior League team in Minnesota composed entirely of Rotaractors.

In February 2010, the Smiths took their team to British Columbia during the torch relay leading up to the Winter Olympics to play a series of exhibition games and to serve as peace ambassadors. In addition to participating in joint service projects with their opponents, they worked to raise awareness of Rotary’s polio eradication campaign.

Northern Lights

Smith says the Northern Lights’ young players “come for the hockey, but find much more.” At the end of the year, she says, players always point to their community service as the experience that made the biggest difference in their lives. One of her goals for the team is to establish a model for other sports teams in order to promote the global goals of Rotary.

“Being on our hockey team is about peace-building,” says Smith, who is well versed in the peace process. In fact, Chief Arvol Looking Horse of the Sioux Nation nominated Smith for a Nobel Peace Prize for her volunteer mediation work in settling a long-running land dispute involving historic Fort Snelling in Bloomington, Minn. “Sports can be the vehicle for connecting different cultures and nationalities,” Smith says. “Hockey becomes the universal language – players find that they share the passion for the same sport and have something in common with one another.”

Smith has her sights set on another goodwill trip for the Northern Lights. Their destination? Winnipeg.